1921-02-18

REPORTS AND PAPERS

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Report of the Clerk of Petitions dated February 18, 1921.
Returns of the 13th General election to the House of 17th December, 1917, and by-elections held during the years 1916, 1917,	1918, and 1919 in French and
English.-Mr. Speaker.
Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1920.-Right Hon. Sir George Foster.
Report of the Department of Customs and Inland Revenue for the year ending March 31, 1920.-Hon. Mr. Wigmore.
Shipping report of the Department of Customs.-Hon. Mr. Wigmore.

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Hon. J. D. REID (Minister of Railways and Canals) presented the reports of the Select Committee to prepare and report lists of members composing the Select Standing Committees of the House as follows:
No. l
ON PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS Messieurs:
Armstrong (York), Blake,
Boys,
Buchanan,
Bureau,
Cannon,
Copp,
Crothers,
Davidson,
Demers,
Devlin,
Doherty,
Douglas (Strathcona), Fripp,
Guthrie,
Jacobs,
Keefer,
Lapointe,
Lemieux,
McCoig,
McIntosh,
McKenzie,
McMaster,
Meighen,
Mowat,
Porter,
Tweedie, and
Vien.-28.
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No. 2 ON RAILWAYS, CANALS AND TELEGRAPH LINES.
Messieurs:
Allan,
Anderson,
Archambault,
Argue,
Armstrong (Lambton), Arthurs, '
Ballantyne,
B§land,
Blair,
Blake,
Bol'ton,
Bonnell,	.
Boyer,
Boys,
Bristol,
Buchanan,
Bureau,
Cahill,
Calder,
Campbell,
Cannon,
Casgrain,
Chabot, [DOT]
Charlton,
Chisholm,
Cla-Tk (Red Deer), Clements,
Cockshutt,
Cooper,
Copp,
Crerar,
Crowe,
Cruise,
Currie,
d'Anjou.
Davidson,
Davis,
D6eh6ne,
Delisle,
Devlin,
Doherty,
Douglas
(Cape Breton), Douglas (Strathcona), Edwards,
Elkin,
Ethier,
Euler,
Fafard,	.
Fielding, -Fontaine,
Fournier,
Fraser,
Fripp,
Gauvreau,
Guthrie,
Harold,
Harrison,
Hay,
Henders,
Hepburn,
Hocken,
Hughes (Sir Sam), Kay,
Keefer,
Knox,
Lalor,
Lanictot,
Lapointe,
Lavigueur,
Leduc,
Lemieux,
Leisage,
Long,
Majckie (Edmonton), Mackie (Renfrew), Maclean (York), MacNutt,
McCoig,
McCrea,
McCurdy,
McGregor,
McLean (Royal), McQuarrie,
Maharg,
Manion,
Marcile (Bagot),
Martin,
Merner,
Mewburn,
Middlebro,
Molloy,
Morphy,
Mowat,
Murphy,
Myers,
Nesbitt,
Nicholson (Algoma), Nicholson (Queens), Pardee,
Parent,
Peck,
Pelletier,
Porter,
Power,
Reid (Grenville),
Reid (Mackenzie), Richardson,
Savard,
SSguin,
Shaw,
Shear d,
Simpson,
Smith,
Stevens,
Stewart (Hamilton), Stewart (Lanark), Sutherland,
Thompson (Weyburn), Thomson (Qu'Appelle), t Trahan,
Tudhope,
Vien,
Wallace,
Wigmore,
Wilson (Saskatoon), Wilson
(Wentworth), and Wright.-127.
of the said Committee
And that the Quorum do consist of Twenty-five Members.
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No. 3 ON MISCELLANEOUS PRIVATE BILLS.
Messieurs:
Ames (Sir Herbert),	Hocken,
Anderson,	Kennedy (Essex),
Andrews,	Knox,
Archaanbault,	Lafortune,
Armstrong (York),	Mackie (Renfrew),
Ballantyne,	McGibbon (Muskoka),
Ball,	McLean (Royal),
Blair,	Marcil (GBonaventure),
Bourassa,	Martin,
Boyer,	Pacaud,
Boys,	Papineau,
Brien,	Pardee,
Bureau,	Parent,
Butts,	Paul,
Casselman,	Pedlow,
Charters,	Power,
Cronyn,	PrSvost,
Douglas (Cape Breton),Proulx,	
DuTremblay,	Reid (Grenville),
Ethier,	Richardson,
Fortier,	Robb,
Foster (York),	Ross,
Fraser,	Rowell,
Fripp,	Scott,
Fulton,	Steele,
Gauthier,	Stein,
Glass,	Stewart (Lanark),
Green,	Thompson (Hastings),
Guthrie,	Tobin, and
Harrison,	Tolmie.-61.
Hepburn,	
And that the Quorum of the said Committee do consist of Ten Members.
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No. 4 ON STANDING ORDERS.
Messieurs:
Armstrong- (Lambton) Brien,
Butts,
Ohabot,
Clarke (Wellington), fcruise,
Deslauriers,
Doherty,
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Euler,
Gervaie,
Griesibach,
Halbert,
partt,
Hepburn,
Kemp (Sir Edward), MaicKelvie,
And that the Quoru: do consist or Seven IV
, Maclean (York), MaoNutt,
McGibibon (Argenteuil), MfoGibbon (Muskoka), Me Isaac,
Marcile (Bagot), Mayrand,
Michaud,
Mowat,
Paul,
S6guin,
Stacey,	[DOT]
Turgeon,
Verville,
Wallace, and White
(Sir Thomas).-33. m of the said Committee
No. 5
ON PRINTING Messieurs:
Bowman,
Brouillard,
Buchanan,
Cardin,
Charters,
Clark (Bruce),
Clarke (Wellington), Crowe,
Currie,
Fontaine,
Hocken,
Hughes (Sir Sam), 
Keefer,
Maclean (Halifax), Michaud,
Murphy,
Pr§vost,
Richardson,
Shaw,
Verville,
White (Victoria), Wilson (Wentworth), and
Wright.-23.
No. 6
ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. Messieurs:
Andrews,
Archambault,
Ball,
Best,
Bonnell,
Boys,
Calder,
Cannon,
Chaplin,
Chisholm,
Copp,
Crothers,
Crowe,
Davidson,
Demers,
Devlin,
Drayton CSir Henry) Edwards,
Fripp,
Fulton,
Gauvreau,
Green,
Griesbach,
Jacobs,
Kemp (Sir Edward), Lapointe,
Mackie (Renfrew), Maclean (Halifax), McCoig,
McCrea,
McGregor,
Mclsaac,
McKenzie,
McMaster,
Maharg,
Meighen,
Merner,
Mewburn,
Michaud,
Middlebro,
Morphy,
Murphy,
Papineau,
Parent,
Proulx,
Redman,
Reid (Grenville),
Ross,
Scott,
Sheard,
Simpson,
Sinclair (Antigonish ), Spinney,
Thomson [DOT] (Qu'Appelle), Tremain,
Tudhope,
Tweedie,
Verville,
Vien,
White (Sir Thomas), and
Wigmore.-61.
And that the Quorum of the said Committee do consist of Twenty-one Members.
No. 7
ON BANKING AND COMMERCE Messieurs:
Allan,
Ames (Sir Herbert), Argue,
Baldwin,
Best,
Bristol,
Calder,
Cardin,
Casgrain,
Chaplin,
Charlton,
Clements,
Cockshutt,
Cowan,
Crerar,
Cronyn,
Currie,
d'Anjou,
Davis,
D£ch£ne,
Demers,
Denis,
Desaulniers,
Deslauriers,
Douglas (Strathcona), Drayton (Sir Henry), DuTremblay,
Edwards,
Elkin,
Fielding,
Finley,
Fortier,
Foster (Sir George), Foster (York), Gauthier,
Lang,
Lavigueur,
Leduc,
L6ger,
Lemieux,
Lesage,
Loggie,
Maclean (Halifax ), Maclean (York), McCurdy,
McGibbon (Argenteuil), McQuarrie,
Meighen,
Middlebro,
Molloy,
Nesbitt,
Pacaud,
Papineau,
Pardee,
Pedlow,
Porter,
Redman,
Robb,
Ross,
Sexsmith,
Sinclair (Antigonish), Steele,
Stevens,
Stew'art (Hamilton ), Sutherland,
Thompson (Yukon), Thomson (Qu'Appelle), Tobin,
Trahan,
Tremain,

Glass,
Henders,
Hunt,
Jacobs,
Johnston,
Kemp (Sir Edward), Kennedy (Essex),
And that the Quoru do consist of Twenty-<
Tweedie,
Whidden,
White
(Sir Thomas), and Wilson
(Saskatoon).-81.
n of the said Committee ne Members.
No. 8
ON AGRICULTURE AND COLONIZATION. Messieurs:
Allan,	MacKelvie,
Anderson,	Mackie (Edmonton),
Argue,	Mackie ( Renfrew),
Armstrong (York),	MacNutt, [DOT]
Armstrong (Lambton) ,McCoig,	
Arthurs,	McCrea,
Baldwin,	McCurdy,
Ball,	McDonald,
Best,	McGibbon (Argdnteuil),
Blair,	McGibbon ( Muskoka),
Bolton,	McGregor,
Bourassa,	McIntosh,
Bowman,	Mclsaac,
Boyce,	McLean (Royal),
Brien,	McMaster, ,
Brouillard,	Maharg,
Cahill,	Marcile (Bagot),
Caldwell,	Mayrand,
Casgrain,	Merner,
Casselman,	Molloy,
Charters,	Morphy,
Clark (Red Deer),	Myers,
Clarke (Wellington),	Nicholson (Algoma),
Cowan,	Nicholson (Queens),
Crerar,	Paul,
Cruise,	Proulx,
Davis,	Reid (Mackenzie),
Delisle,	Robb.
Denis,	Savard,
Desaulniers,	S6guin,
Douglas (Strathcona),	Sexsmith,
Edwards,	Shaw,
Finley,	Simpson,
Fournier,	Sinclair (Antigonish ),
Fulton,	Sinclair
Gervais,	(Queens, P.E.I.),
Glass,	Smith,
Gould,	Spinney,
Halbert,	Stacey,
Halladay,	Steele,
Harold,	Sutherland,
Hay,	Thompson (Hastings),
Henders,	Thompson (Weyburn),
Hughes (Sir Sam),	Thompson (Yukon),
Hunt,	Tolmie,
Johnston,	Tremain,
Kay,	Truax,
Kennedy (Glengarry), Wallace,	
Knox,	Whidden,
Lafortune,	White (Victoria),
Lanctfit,	Wilson
Lang,	(Wentworth), and
L6ger,	Wright.-105.
Long,
And that the Quorum of the said Committee do consist of Twelve Members.
No. 9
ON MARINE AND FISHERIES Messieurs:
Ballantyne,
Butts,
Caldwell,
Manion,
Martin,
Munson,
Cardin,	Nicholson (Queens),
Chisholm,	Peck,
Clark (Bruce),	Pelletier,
Clements,	Rowell.
Deslauriens,	Savard,
Duff.	Sinclair (Antigonish),
Fielding,	Sinclair
Gauvreau,	(Queens, P.E.I.),
Hartt,	Spinney,
Hay,	Stevens,
Lang,	Trahan,
Ldger,	Truax,
Loggie,	Tudhope,
McIntosh,	Turgeon, and
McKenzie,	Wigmore.-36.
McQuarrie,	
And that the Quorum of the said Committee	
do consist of Ten Members.	
-	No. 10
ON MINES AND MINERALS	
Arthurs.	Messieurs: Lemieux,
Blake,	Loggie,
Bolton,	Long,
Bonnell,	MacKelvie,
Cahill,	McDonald,
Campbell,	Marcil (Bonaven'ture),
Cockshutt,	Nesbitt,
D6ch£ne,	Nicholson (Algoma),
Denis,	Pacaud,
Fortier,	Peck,
Gould,	Pelletier,
Green,	Provost,
Griesbach,	Reid (Mackenzie),
Halbert,	Rinfret,
Harrison,	Sexsmith,
Hartt,	Smith,
Johnston,	Thompson
Kennedy (Glengarry), (Yukon), and	
La lor,	White (Victoria).-37.
And that the	Quorum of the said Committee
do consist of Ten Members.	
ON FORESTS,	* No. 11 WATERWAYS AND WATER-
Baldwin,	POWERS Messieurs: Halladay,
Bdland,	Kennedy (Glengarry )t,
Bourassa,	Mackie (Edmonton),
Bowman,	McDonald,
Boyce,	Manion,
Bureau,	Michaud,
Caldwell,	Pacaud,
Campbell,	Power,
Casselman,	Redman,
Charlton,	Stein,
Cooper,	Stewart (Hamilton),
Cowan,	Thompson (Hastings),
Ethier,	Thompson (Weyburn),
Fafard,	Tolmie,
Finley,	White (Victoria), and
Foster (York),	Wilson
Fraser,	(Saskatoon ).-3 4.
Gould,	
And that the	Quorum of the said Committee
do consist of Ten Members.	
OFFICIAL	No. 12 REPORT OF DEBATES.
Balantyne,	Messieurs: Lemieux,
Chabot,	McKenzie,
Devlin,	Marcil (Bona venture ),
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Elkin,	Munson,
Foster (Sir George), Richardson, and Hocken,	Rinfret.-13.
Kay,
And that the Quorum of the said Committee do consist of Five Members.
No. 13
ON THE LIBRARY Messieurs:
Andrews,
Boland,
Borden (Sir Robert), Boyer,
Ohaplin,
Clark (Red Deer ), Cooper,
Cronyn,
Crothens,
Drayton (Sir Henry), Foster (Sir George),
Harold,
King,
Lapointe,
Lemieux,
Meighen,
Myers,
Pardee, Rowell, Sheard, and Whidden.-21.
On motion of Hon. J. D. Reid, the report was concurred in.

Rt. Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Prime Minister) moved:: power to send for persons, papers and records; with the exception of the Committee on Debates and that on the Library of Parliament.



CANADIAN MERCHANT MARINE

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On the orders of the day:
Mr. WM. DUFF (Lunenburg) :	Is the
report correct that the steamships "Canadian Mariner" and "Canadian Explorer," lately built by the Halifax shipyards on the orders of the Government, have been registered in the Port of Montreal? If so, may I ask why they were not registered in Halifax instead?
Mr. SPEAKER:: The question which the hon. member asks is one that should properly be placed on the Order Paper. It is not a question of such urgency as to warrant its being asked on the Orders of the Day.



THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH

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That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House will unite with them in the formation of a Joint Committee of both Houses on the subject of the printing of Parliament, and that the members of the Select Standing Committee on Printing namely, Messrs. Bowman, Brouillard, Buchanan, Cardin, Charters, Clark (Bruce), Clarke (Wellington), Crowe, Currie, Fontaine, Hocken, Hughes (Sir Sam), Keefer, Maclean (Halifax), Michaud, Murphy, Prevost, Richardson, Shaw, Verville, White (Victoria), Wilson (Wentworth), and Wright, will act as members on the part of this House on the said Joint Committee on the Printing of Parliament
Motion agreed to.

Mr. MEIGHEN MOVED:: That a message be sent to the Senate informing Their Honours that this House has appointed Messrs. Andrews, Beland, Borden (Sir Robert), Boyer, Chaplin, Clark (Red Deer), Cooper, Cronyn, Crothers, Drayton (Sir Henry), Foster (Sir George) Harold, King, Lapointe, Lemieux, Meighen, Myers, Pardee, Rowell, Sheard, and Whidden, a Committee to assist His Honour the Speaker in the direction of the Library of Parliament, so far as the interests of the House of Commons are concerned, and to act on behalf of the House of Commons as members of a Joint Committee of both Houses on the Library.


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Motion agreed to.

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On motion of Hon. Mr. Meighen the Select Standing Committees of the House were severally empowered to examine and enquire into all such matters and things as may be referred to them by the House; and to report from time to time their observations and opinions thereon; with

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Consideration of the motion of Mr. James Mclsaac for an address to His Excellency the Governor General, in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Mackenzie King, resumed from Thursday, February 17.
Hon. N. W. ROWELL (Durham) :: Mr. Speaker, while I have not had the privilege of being in the House and listening during the past two days, to the discusion that has taken place on the motion for the adoption of the Address I judge, from a perusal of Hansard, that the procedure adopted on this occasion is to devote one day to a general political party controversy and the next to the consideration of questions of public importance upon which there is a substantial degree of unanimity in the House. I judge, from reading yesterday's debate in Hansard, that this is the day for a discussion of a matter on which there may be a substantial measure of agreement. I therefore shall be quite within the limits of the procedure so far pursued in discussing the Address, if I confine my observations to that one important paragraph in the Address dealing with the League of Nations and the work of the assembly of the League at Geneva. The House has had the benefit, if the right hon. gentleman will permit me to say so, of a very clear, comprehensive, and wholly admirable review of the work of the Assembly at Geneva and of the purposes for which the League of Nations was formed. My duty this

afternoon, therefore, will be to' fill in some of the details of the picture sketched in such broad and clear outline by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster). Before, however, referring to some of the matters discussed at Geneva, may I say in passing that I shall not attempt to go into great detail this afternoon, for I judge that the time for a detailed discussion, if the House desires to have such a discussion, will be when the estimates for the League are before the House. At that time there will be a full opportunity to ask and to answer questions in reference to these important matters. Let me preface my remarks as to the work of the Assembly by one or two general observations in reference to the League of Nations and the great purpose which it is designed to serve in the world. Prior to the present time, so far as history preserves for us a record, each nation has looked upon every other nation as a real or potential enemy; and because each nation has regarded every other in that light it has felt compelled to protect itself against aggression by erecting works for defence, by establishing armies, by building navies, and by taking all the precautions necessary to protect it against aggressive attack, or if aggressively inclined it has taken these measures to ensure success in its attacks upon its neighbours. The same idea has compelled nations to form alliance, to associate other nations with themselves in alliances more or less close, with the object of offsetting other alliances among other nations and so preserving what has been know for a long time in diplomacy as the balance of power. The culmination of that policy, and its severest condemnation, has been the great war from which we have just emerged, and the crimes and atrocities, as well as the loss and suffering, which that war entailed, compelled humanity to try and discover some other principle which should find expression in the diplomacy and policy of the world. That other expression is, that each nation should look upon every other nation if not as a real, at least as a potential friend, and that the best safeguard of the peace of the world is not in arming for conflict but in cooperating together to prevent armed conflict; and that is the principle embodied in the Covenant of the League of Nations.
We all recognize in organized society the difference between a private wrong and a public wrong. We recognize there are certain injuries which if a private citizen sustains at the hands of another citizen his redress is through the civil courts.
There are other injuries where the law steps in and says, although an injury has been done a private citizen, a public wrong has been committed, and no matter what the desire of the parties immediately concerned, justice must be vindicated and the guilty party must be punished. Therefore we have the public prosecution of public wrongs.
Too often in international affairs serious controversies between states, have been regarded as only of immediate concern to the two parties to the dispute, and each nation has claimed the right to settle its dispute with its neighbour nation in whatever way it thought best, regardless of the views or interests of the other nations of the world. The world is coming to realize the fact that there are public rights and public wrongs in international affairs, just as there are public rights and wrongs in domestic affairs in each civilized country, and it is no longer possible to permit a nation to make war upon another to redress its own grievances and so disturb the peace of the whole world, and that war, or a threat of war, in any part of the world is a matter of concern to all the nations. That is another principle which finds expression through the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Now, Mr. Speaker, let me make one or two observations in explanation of what the League is, and I ask pardon of the House for coming back to a matter which has been so frequently discussed. I do it, however, because wherever one goes one finds great misapprehension as to the purposes and functions of the League of Nations. Let me say, notwithstanding what has been so often suggested, the League is not a super-state. The League has no jurisdiction to undertake the government of the world or to settle all difficulties that may arise in various quarters of the world. I have heard the complaint made that the League is ineffective because wars are now going on in various parts of the world. The League was not organized for the purpose of making peace, following the [DOT] recent war. That is the task of the Supreme Council, and if peace has not been established up to date in many quarters of the world it is not because of any failure on the part of the League. It is because the Supreme Council, in view of the ^policy of the past and the conditions of the present, has not been able to bring about peace. The question came directly before the Council of the League some months ago on the application of the King of the Hed-jaz in complaint against France in con-

nection with certain acts committed in Lebanon. The Council of the League took the position, which is justified under the Treaty and under the Covenant, that it was not their duty to make the peace. They were organized to preserve the peace once it was made, and as peace had not been established as between Turkey and the Allied Powers, the League had no jurisdiction to intervene in that dispute.
I mention these matters because another question has been asked. What is the League doing to secure reparation from Germany for the crimes she has committed and thb losses occasioned by the war? The League, Mr. Speaker, has no jurisdiction over that matter; it is entirely beyond its jurisdiction. That is a matter entirely for the Supreme Council which must deal with that problem and settle it.
What then are the functions of the League? They are of three-fold character. I would call them the primary and secondary functions under the Covenant, and third, certain functions under the Treaties of Peace.
What is the primary function of the League under the Covenant? It is to preserve the peace of the world by the prevention of war, and to prevent war by providing a substitute for war as a means of settling international disputes. The secondary function of the League, as was so well pointed out in the address delivered by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Poster) is to provide a means for international co-operation in a large number of matters of common concern to all the nations of the world. What are the duties of the League under the Treaties of Peace? I shall give two or three illustrations. Under the Treaty of Versailles the League is responsible for naming the commission and organizing the Government of the Saar Basin. On that commission is one of our Canadian citizens, Mr. Waugh of Winnipeg, and I am sure it will be a matter of gratification to you, as it was to us, to hear from the officials of the League in Geneva the strongest testimony to the splendid service that Mr. Waugh was rendering as a member of that commission. The League had also to arrange for the government of the free city of i)antzig,_ to negotiate a Treaty between Dantzig and Poland, and to name a commissioner as governor of that city. They are responsible for guaranteeing the carrying out of certain of the clauses of the minorities treaties entered into pursuant
[Mr. Rowell. 1
to the Treaties of Peace. The League is now devoting its energies to these important functions. The Minister of Trade and Commerce has dealt with the organization of the Council and the Assembly, and I' shall therefore pass on to touch upon some phases of the work of the Assembly at Geneva which were not explained by my hon. friend the other day. The Minister of Trade and Commerce pointed out that in the organization of the Assembly we had to appoint a president. Modesty perhaps prevented him from explaining that we had also to elect vice-presidents. There were six vice-presidents who were chairmen of the six commissions of the Assembly, and there were six vice-presidents at large elected by the delegates present at the Assembly. I am sure it is a matter of congratulation to the House and the country that the chairman of the Canadian delegation was chosen as one of the vice-presidents at large of the first Assembly at Geneva. All matters which came before the Assembly were referred for consideration and report to one of the six commissions appointed by the Assembly. The subjects entrusted to these commissions were: First, Constitutional Questions; Second, Technical Organizations; Third, the permanent Court of International Justice; Fourth, the Secretariat and the Budget; Fifth, Admission of new States; and, Sixth, Armaments, Mandates, and the Economic Blockade. In the allotment of positions on these commissions it so happened that I was assigned to numbers one and two; the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) to numbers three and six; and the Chairman of our delegation, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) to numbers four and five. As the work of the Assembly progressed it appeared that commissions one and two, and four and five would meet at the same time; therefore Sir George Foster exchanged places with me, I taking his place on number five, and he taking my place on number two. Consequently in the general work of the Assembly the Minister of Trade and Commerce sat on commissions two and four, the Minister of Justice on commissions three and six, and I on commissions one and five.
Possibly the most important work of the Assembly was laying the foundations for the future. It was not simply an international conference at which men would meet to discuss certain matters and then separate, and the work would after-

wards have to be done over again. It was organizing a new body for permanent work, because any one who is interested in and believes in the future of the League looks forward to its future as not being a matter of years or decades, but a permanent organization, influencing and guiding the international life of the world. Therefore it was of the utmost importance at the first meeting of the Assembly that the foundations should be laid on sure ground, and that the Assembly in its deliberations should he kept on such secure foundations.
It followed that the questions that came before commission Number one, the commission on constitutional questions, had not only an interest for the present Assembly, hut had a real bearing upon the future of the League, and I am sure you will think I shall be taking the right course this afternoon if I devote my time to questions with which I was most immediately concerned on the two commissions on which I sat. I am certain the Minister of Justice will give the House full information with reference to the work of the commissions in which he took such an important part.
Now, Sir, let me take first the rules of procedure. That sounds simple, but we had to decide in adopting these rules whether we would follow the British parliamentary practice or the continental practice; they were not the same. In the result a composite system of rules was adopted, some from the British parliamentary practice, some from the continental practice, and on the whole they were rules which appeared to the Assembly well designed to govern the deliberations of such a body.	t
There were two provisions in these rules to which I wish to draw the attention of the House, for they are important and significant having regard to the future work of the Assembly. They received emphasis at a later stage by the action of other committees. One of those rules required the budget to he submitted to the Assembly at its Annual meeting each year. Under the Constitution of the League both the Council and the Assembly have jurisdiction over matters of finance, but one of the first actions of the Assembly was to assert its authority in the voting of money for carrying on the work of the League. That will have a very important bearing on the development of the League in the future.
Another matter set forth and asserted in those rules was that each year the Council should report to the Assembly on the work done by the Council from the date of the preceding Assembly. While the
Council is supreme in any action it takes within its own jurisdiction as outlined in the Covenant, yet the Assembly laid down the principle that the Council should report to the Assembly from time to time. The members of the Council present in the Assembly-all the States were present- accepted that statement of policy. It means that in future all acts done by the Council between the meetings of the Assembly shall be reported to the Asembly at its next annual meeting. That report will be open for discussion and review, just as the Speech from the Throne is open for discussion and review, and every action of the Council may be debated in that open forum in the presence of the nations of the world and before the press of the world. This means further that matters cannot be done in secret by the Council of the League, even though its meetings are not open to the public in the same way as are the meetings of the Assembly.
Then another matter of great interest and importance, having regard to the future of the League, was the discussion of the relations between the Council and the Assembly. There is a good deal of confusion in reference to what those relations should be; there was not a little confusion in the minds of the delegates themselves; and that was natural, because the Covenant does not draw a very clear line between the functions of one and the other. But this much is clear: In matters that are expressly committed to the Council, either under the Covenant or under any of the Treaties of Peace, the Assembly has no jurisdiction to render a decision. Similarly, where matters are expressly committed to the Assembly, either under the Covenant or under any of the Treaties of Peace, the Council has no jurisdiction to give a decision. In general matters both the Council and the Assembly are competent to deal with them as they arise.
There is a third class, and an important one as events at the Assembly showed, in regard to which neither the Council nor the Assembly has authority to take final action. I am now referring to matters included within what I have referred to as the secondary functions of the League, matters which come under Article XXIII of the Covenant. That article is prefaced with a declaration to this effect:
That under the terms- of international conventions heretofore or hereafter agreed upon, the members agree to do so and so.
In other words, in those matters coming within Article XXIII the members of the



League have not committed either to the Council or to the Assembly the final authority; they have said in respect to those matters:	International conventions must
be submitted to us, the terms agreed upon must be approved by us, those conventions must be executed by us, and then the Council and the Assembly may proceed to deal with those matters.
Another matter that arose in discussing the relations of the Council to the Assembly, and which occasioned a good deal of discussion, was: What was the position of a member of the Council in giving his vote in reference to the Government which appointed him; did he in giving his vote record his own opinion, or did he record the opinion of the state which named him? The question was raised in the Assembly by the distinguished representative of Italy, Signor Tittoni. He took the ground that the members of the Council were not representatives of their states, but occupied the superior position of magistrates, and were to dispose of matters on the grounds of equity and justice and the broad principles of humanity. Some of the members of the Assembly could not see any good reason why a member of the Council should not at the same time represent his state and dispose of matters on the principles of equity and justice and in the broad interests of humanity.
But that issue goes to the very basis of the efficiency of the League. If members of the League are simply there as a group of public men recording their own opinions, valuable as these opinions may be, you simply have an international debating society without power to achieve anything effective.
If, on the other hand, these delegates represent their Governments so that when they cast their vote the vote,is that of their Governments and binds their Governments only of course to the extent provided in the Covenant-you have a body of plenipotentiaries capable of negotiating and settling matters of very great international importance, and you give to the decisions of the Council and of the Assembly a value and a dignity otherwise quite impossible. That question was carefully considered and the Assembly came unanimously to the conclusion that on the proper interpretation of the Covenant, while a member may express such opinions as he sees fit and is responsible only to his own Government for his opinions, when the vote is cast it is the vote not of the delegate but of the State he represents. So all voting in the Coun-
cil and in the Assembly is by States and those votes bind the States to the extent but only to the extent mentioned in the Covenant.


Mr. McMASTER:: May I interject a question? That will mean, will it not, that the representatives must always be drawn from the party which is in control of the administration of the country which they represent?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I do not think so. The vote is cast by the chairman of the delegation, and he should cast the vote in accordance with the views of his Government. But that does not prevent the representation of other sections of the people, if the Government in question chooses to name them. It is for the Government of each country to name its delegates to the Assembly.
The only other important constitutional question to which I shall refer is that of amendments to the Government. There were three important groups of amendments: 1st the Scandinavian; 2nd the Argentine; 3rd the Canadian. Two important amendments were submitted by the Scandinavian group, first, to provide for compulsory arbitration or to give the new International Court of Justice, when created, compulsory jurisdiction; and second, to provide for the election of all the members of the Council. The Argentine delegation presented practically the same amendments; and Mr. Doherty on behalf of the Canadian delegation presented a proposal to strike out Article 10. The Assembly decided to refer all these proposals to the Council with the request that the Council appoint a Commission to consider these amendments and report to the next Assembly.
May I now refer to two constitutional questions which arose from out of the work of commission number two,-questions which have a very important bearing on the future development of the work of the League, and are of great interest to the people of this country. The first arose from the suggestion of Italy and Switzerland that the Assembly should take into consideration the question of monopolies in raw materials, and of the equitable distribution of the raw materials to the several countries of the world. It was not the first occasion on which the question had been raised. I understand, that before the Treaty was signed, Italy put forward proposals to the effect that the Cov-*

enant of the League should cover this question. These proposals were not accepted. When the International Labour Conference met in Washington in the fall of 1919 the representative of Italian labour brought forward a similar proposal and asked that a resolution should be adopted calling upon the League to institute an investigation into the world's supply of raw materials * with a view of securing their equitable distribution. On that occasion the representatives of the Government of Canada felt compelled to state clearly the position of Canada; that while she would administer her raw materials in the way that she considered just and fair to all interests involved, she could not permit any other power to interfere with the manner in which she handled this matter of purely domestic concern. When the question came up at Geneva the representatives of Canada took exactly the same position. But that did not stop the discussion. The Minister of Trade and Commerce can tell you that during the whole period of time that commission number two was in session, proposal after proposal was made; when one was unacceptable another, in modified form, was brought forward, with a view of committing the League in some form or other to this important principle. Canada, in her resistance to this proposal, was ably supported by the other Dominions and' India; the brunt of the fight against the proposal rested upon the Dominions of the British Empire and India. Great Britain as a member of the Council had already assented to an inquiry into the question of raw materials on the motion of the representative of Italy; she was therefore not in a position to oppose the resolution in the Assembly, as the Dominions were.
The objections of Canada to the proposal were on three grounds. We said that the question did not come within the scope of the Covenant; that the League of Nations was not a super State with power to take up any question it might see fit to take up; but it was an agreement among States to co-operate for certain definite purposes in the manner provided in the Covenant, and not otherwise or for other purposes. The first objection, therefore, was that the question was not within the scope of the Covenant, and that to attempt to drag it in by a side door was not fair to the nations parties to the Covenant and not fair to the League itself. Secondly, even
if you assumed for the sake of argument -though I am quite convinced you cannot do so-that you could stretch Article 23 so as to bring that question within, then Article 23 is quite clear that before you could have the right to deal definitely and finally with such a matter, you must have an international convention agreed to by the nations parties to the Covenant, and you could only act in accordance with the terms of that international convention. Just let me read the introductory clause to that Article, because we have not yet reached the end of this question. It is bound to come up in the next Assembly and at future Assemblies of the League, due to the great need of raw materials in certain countries of Europe and to the acute' distress which exists because of that lack of raw materials. No one can learn the facts in connection with the industrial life of many of these Central European countries without sympathizing-very deeply with them in their difficulties, and without being anxious to assist in providing some remedy for them. But that does not involve one's departure from the terms of this Covenant and embarking upon an impossible enterprise. The introductory clause of Article 23 is as follows :
Subject to and in accordance with the provisions of international conventions existing or hereafter to be agreed upon, the Members of the League:
And then I will come down to the provision they rely upon:
(e) will make provision to secure and maintain freedom of communications and of transit and' of equitable treatment for the commerce of all Members of the League.
Under that head of "equitable treatment for the commerce of all members of the League " they claim to bring in the question of the supply of raw material. Now, as I have said, we claim that if by any stretch of construction this question could be held to come within Article 23, then there is no right to deal with it unless and until an international convention is agreed upon among the members of the League, and then whatever action is taken must be pursuant to the terms of that Convention. If that procedure were followed, the convention when drafted, would be submitted to the Government of this country, and the Government in accordance with the precedent established in dealing with important international agreements, would submit the Convention to this House for consideration and approval.

The people of Canada would have full opportunity of discussing, of considering and reaching a conclusion on this important matter before Canada was finally committed to the policy outlined. Therefore, one can see how important it is, if we are to reserve our legitimate control over matters which do, in some respects, touch our internal or domestic affairs, that we should follow strictly the terms of the agreement embodied in the Covenant.
The third objection was the practical one. You cannot undertake to control or provide for the equitable distribution of the world's raw materials unless you undertake a measure of control of the industrial life of all the industrial nations of the world. That is utterly impracticable. Who is to say what this nation needs or what that nation shall have? Therefore, while the question is one upon which Canada feels strongly because of her position, the proposal is objectionable not only from the standpoint of Canada but equally from the standpoint of the League itself. If you hold out to the nations of Europe, who are in great industrial distress to-day because of a shortage of raw materials, that the League will provide an avenue through which they can get raw materials, and they find, as they would find, that they could not get them from the League, then you turn their anger and animosity against the League and interfere with the League carrying out its primary functions. Instead of the League being an organ for preserving the peace of the world, you make it an instrument for international friction and trouble. On the other hand if you say that the League has power to do this, you create at once on this side of the Atlantic a sentiment against any league of nations which has authority to interfere in our domestic affairs. Whether it be North or South America or the newer countries of the Eastern world, they will all be opposed to a league which has any such authority. The ground taken by Canada was constitutionally sound; it was sound from a commonsense,, practical business standpoint, and it was also greatly in the interest of the League itself.
I had intended this afternoon touching on certain other questions that arose under this article 23 of the Covenant, but I shall not do so. An opportunity will arise when the Estimates are up, if members are interested, in a discussion of those questions. Those were the proposals to create new international organizations as subsidiary of the League, one relating to communications and transit and the other re-
[Mr. Rowell. 1
lating to finance and economics. These give rise to one of the most important discussions in the Assembly. I shall now refer to the other commission upon which I sat, No. V-the admission of new states. No question excited more interest In the Assembly than the question of the admis-' sion of new states to the League. This interest, of course, related particularly to the admission of former enemy states. Austria and Bulgaria had applied for admission. Germany did not apply. The conditions which must be complied with,
- in order that a state shall be admitted to the League are set out in article 1 of the Covenant and are as follows:
Any fully self-governing state, Dominion, or Colony, not named in the annex, may become a member of the League if its admission is agreed to by two-thirds of the Assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and1 shall accept such regulations as may,be prescribed by the League in regard to its military and naval forces and armaments.
Therefore, when Austria and Bulgaria applied for admission, the question immediately arose whether they were in a position to comply with the conditions of admission. Three sub-committees of commission V were appointed to examine the applications of the fourteen states which applied for admission. The sub-committees were asked to investigate and answer these five questions:
1.	Was the application for admission to the League of Nations in order?
2.	Is the Government recognized de jure or de facto and by which states?
3.	Does the country possess a stable Government and settled frontiers? What are its size and population?
4.	Is the country fully self-governing?
5.	What has been the conduct of the country concerning both acts and assurances with regards to:	(1) her international obligations;
(2) the prescriptions of the League of Nations as to armaments?
In the case of Austria and Bulgaria, the only point of difficulty was the second last question-have these two countries given effective guarantees or satisfactory evidence of a sincere intention to perform their international obligations? That question had to be answered in the affirmative before those States became qualified for admission to the League. After the most careful investigation from all available sources, the commission reached the conclusion that both of those States satisfied that requirement, and they recommended the admission of Austria and Bulgaria to the League. That recommendation was

adopted by the Assembly, and those States and four others were admitted. No one who sees the situation as it exists in Europe to-day can fail to recognize the importance of this step. It is a real step towards the reconciliation of Europe and, however much we may feel the wrongs of the war, however much we may cherish the feelings that were bred of the war, no man who looks out upon Europe in its present disorganized condition, where in certain sections, the very future of our civilization is in jeopardy can do other than reach the conclusion that it is of the first importance to Europe and to humanity as a whole that this reconciliation should proceed; that Europe should get back to real peace and to the spirit of peace, and to production in order to repair the loss and wastage of the war. Therefore, the admission of those two States had more significance than simply their actual admission; it was a step towards the reconciliation of Europe.
The other States admitted were Albania, Costa Rica, Finland, and Luxemberg. The States rejected were Armenia, Azerbigan, Esthonia, Georgia, Latavia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, and Ukraine. I will not discuss to-day the reasons for their rejection they all appear in the records of the Assembly, and if a discussion on them is desired, it can take place later.
Two or three questions of principle, however, arose before commission No. 5, and I wish to mention these questions of principle because they affect not only the present but the future. The first was *-Did the admission of a State to the League amount to its recognition de jure by the powers? The opinion of the jurists of the League and of eminent jurists of the great powers who were present was asked on this question, but they could not agree. Some thought that admission involved recognition de jure; others did not so consider it. When it was proposed that we should settle this question by a vote, that is, which view we should recognize, . common sense prevailed, we decided not to undertake to settle these questions of abstract principle upon which we might honestly differ; but to deal with each individual case and pass judgment upon the application of that State.
The question did arise in the case of Albania. The argument of the members of the committee who contended that admission to the League amounted to recognition de jure was that if it did amount to recognition de jure we should not admit any State
not already recognized de jure. In the case of Albania the committee reported against the admission of that State until her status should be more clearly determined. The rejection of Albania's application was moved by France and seconded by Great Britain. South Africa moved that Albania be admitted, and was supported by Canada and a number of the smaller States. The majority in the commission, was against the admission of Albania. The matter was carried into the Assembly, and South Africa on the floor of the Assembly moved the admission of Albania. South Africa was supported by Canada, and in the discussion which ensued Great Britain and France withdrew the objections which they had made in the committee and Albania was admitted to the Assembly. That was the one case in which the report of the commission as to the admission of new States was changed. Why was Albania admitted? While the war was on, by the secret Treaty of London, provision had been made for the partition of Albania, without consulting her, at a time when she was occupied by the armies of the powers, and it was agreed upon by States ,who had guaranteed her neutrality. At a later date and in order to settle the dispute' between Italy and the Serb-Croat-Slovene State it was proposed by the Supreme Council, that Albania should be partitioned. That proposition was vetoed by the action of the President of the United States, and when it was proposed that the case of Albania should stand over until her status should be more fully determined by the powers, the majority of the Assembly came to the conclusion that they could not recognize either the legality or the justice of any group of powers undertaking to provide for the partition of a smaller State which had done no wrong, and they determined to put it out of the hands of the powers to carve up Albania in the future by admitting her to the League, and by article ten all the States became guarantors of her territorial integrity. That, of course, particularly applied to her neighbours the other Balkan States, who were not particularly anxious to have her admitted.
One other question cf principle came before this committee, which I wish to mention. It was proposed, in this case by South Africa, I believe, without full consideration, that hereafter no State should be_ admitted to the League unless that State entered into a Treaty similar to the Minorities Treaty entered into by certain of the new central European States as a condition of their recognition as sovereign

States. The Minorities Treaties provided for the protection of the racial minorities that were transferred by the terms of the peace treaty from their existing sovereignty to a new sovereignty. It guaranteed them their language, their religion, their schools, and Government grants. In other words, the design was to perpetuate the racial minority in all its rights and privileges and status. The objection to that proposal, as a general proposition, was twofold. First, we should not add to the conditions of the Covenant for admission to the League a new condition. The object should be to facilitate the entrance of States into the League, rather than to impose barriers against their coming in. Secondly, although that principle under the conditions existing in Europe was probably essential for the preservation of peace in Europe, it did not apply to the conditions existing in the new world. It did not apply to the conditions existing in Canada, where apart from the two great races and the two religions the policy is not to perpetuate the various racial minorities that come to us from Europe and other parts of he world. The policy is not to have a little England, a little Ireland, a little Scotland, a little Belgium, a little Germany, and a little France all over this country. The policy is to develop a Canadian nationality. The policy is assimilation rather than perpetuation of the divers races and creeds that exist in Europe. We do not want to transplant the troubles and the prejudices of central Europe to this new world, and therefore the position taken was that you should not attempt to lay down as a general policy covering the whole world a principle that is applicable only to a section of the world; that while, if you were dealing with a European organization only it might be perfectly proper to lay down that principle, in dealing with a world organization it was wholly wrong to lay down a principle that would not apply to the whole world. The resolution was therefore amended to meet these objections, and it passed, Canada not voting on the matter.
There was a good deal of informal conversation about Russia, the United States and Germany, entering the League, but I shall not enter into that this afternoon.
Everyone recognizes that the Russian situation must be cleared up in some way before Europe can return to normal conditions. One hundred and seventy millions of people in Russia have been producing in the past great quantities of food stuffs and raw materials for the consumption of
[Mr. Rowell.1
the nations of the world. That production has largely ceased, and until it is restored the other nations will want for food and raw materials. On the other hand, Russia has been a great purchaser of the world's manufactured articles. She is no longer a purchaser, and until she becomes a purchaser again, there must be tens of thousands of workmen out of employment who in the past were engaged in the manufacture of goods for Russian consumption. The world is greatly interested in clearing up the Russian situation, but I think every one at Geneva recognized that the situation could only be cleared up by the Russian people themselves, and that the less outside interference there was with Russia the more speedily she would settle her own problems. Speaking for myself, I must say that I sincerely hope that the trade agreement which Great Britain has negotiated with Russia will be ratified by the two government, so that international trade may commence to flow again between these two countries, for I believe that nothing will more quickly bring the Russian people to an appreciation of the benefits of sound constitutional democratic government than free communication with the other nations of the world. So, while the Assembly was acutely concerned in the future of Russia, and in the attitude of Russia, I am sure the Assembly felt that the least said and the freer we left Russia to work out her own destiny and settle her own problems as to her form of government, the more likely we were to promote the peace of the world.
I shall not discuss the question of Germany. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) put the case, as I believe it was viewed by the Assembly, and he also, I believe stated the situation with respect to the United States in the way it was viewed by the Assembly.
I have only this remark to make. When one ask, will the United States come in? let me remind you that we asked exactly the same question during the first two-and-a-half years of war, while the United States discussed and debated the question, [DOT] and events in that country developed. The result was that the circumstances of the situation, plus the conscience and judgment of the American people, brought them into the war and we know the powerful assistance and the hearty co-operation they gave towards bringing the war to a victorious conclusion. I believe the same result will follow in the case of the League of Nations, and that after they are through their discussion and consideration,

perhaps not exactly in the present form of the Covenant but in some satisfactory form, the events of the world, the compulsion that comes from world events, plus the judgment and conscience of the American people, will bring them into the League. Whether they come or not is a matter for themselves and for themselves alone to settle, but the nations of the world will give them a most cordial welcome into the League. Apparently one of the surprises of the Assembly was the independent attitude of the representatives from the Dominions of the British Empire. The representatives from the majority of the states apparently went to Geneva believing that the views of the Dominions and their votes would necessarily follow the views and votes of Great Britain; and when they found this view did not prevail, there was very great surprise. When one of the Canadian delegates incidentally mentioned, by way of illustrating a certain point, that we in Canada did not even permit the statesmen of the Mother Country, for whom we had the greatest respect and administration, to interfere with our domestic affairs, they thought it was proclaiming a revolution. They had an idea that the statesmen of Great Britain managed our affairs. The London Times correspondent remarked that the Assembly would have been worth while if for no other reason than to enable the nations of the world to see, by actual demonstration, what the British Empire really is. The representatives of the nations thought that an empire could not exist in which the various parts had freedom to express their own opinions. They failed to appreciate the fact that this is the very reason why the British Empire does exist, and that without freedom it could not exist at all. They had not realized that the self-governing Dominions have passed from the colonial status and are now free self-governing and sovereign states under a common sovereign, on an equality with the Mother Country. I am sure the experience of other delegates present at the Assembly will confirm the conclusion which I know I reached, that Canada had a larger liberty, a more real independence, and a vastly greater influence as one of the states of the British Commonwealth than she could possibly have as an independent state outside the British Empire. While we claim the fullest freedom for the individual parts of the Empire we must also keep in view the
importance of maintaining the unity of the Empire as a whole. One is just as important as the other. When the forces of disintegration are at work among the various peoples and nations of the world, there is no force existing to-day with such a stabilizing influence for law and order, and peace and justice, as the British Commonwealth of free nations. I am asked if the League will succeed-


Mr. BELAND:: May I say a word before my hon. friend considers that point. I thought he was going on to speak on the question of the admission of states to the League. Will he gratify the House by emphasizing somewhat the point regarding the admission of Germany, in regard to which the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) spoke? Is he in a position to say whether the general sentiments of the members of the League were in favour of or were opposed to the admission of Germany at the present time?


Newton Wesley Rowell: It is difficult to express any more than one's own personal opinion on such a matter. Germany did not apply for admission to the League, therefore the question did not come before the Assembly in any form on which it could take action. It was mentioned several times in the debates and many delegates expressed the hope that Germany would be admitted at an early date. One of the most striking incidents of the whole Assembly occurred during the discussion on the admission of Austria. M. Motta, President of Switzerland, and one of the ablest delegates in the Assembly, speaking on the admission of Austria expressed the hope that the time would not be far distant when Germany, the United States and Russia would be admitted, pressing the contention that the League would not accomplish its greatest results or perform its best service to the world until these other Great Powers were admitted. He had no sooner mentioned the word Germany than M. 'Viviani immediately arose and asked for the floor, and when the President of Switzerland resumed his seat, M. Viviani delivered the most eloquent and moving oration of the whole Assembly. When he resumed his seat he was given an ovation by the entire Assembly. ' In that very eloquent and impassioned speech M. Viviani based his argument on Article 1 of the Covenant, and his contention was that Germany had not yet given evidences of her sincere intention to perform her international obligations, and

speaking on behalf of France he said: "When Germany did give evidence of such an intention they would no longer object to her admission to the League." All that is the point upon which the controversy will arise, and it is a question upon which the various states would no doubt record their opinion, as they believed in the sincerity of Germany's intentions or did not so believe. In the provisions of the Reparations Agreement which was recently submitted by the Supreme Council to Germany and which is to be discussed at the Conference to be held in London next week, it was stated in the press that one of the penalties which was to be imposed on Germany if she did not carry out the agreement was exclusion from the League of Nations. That has been stated in several press despatches. I understand that that is not the form of the clause in the agreement. The clause is to the effect that they will not sanction the admission of Germany. The Supreme Council have no right to determine whether Germany shall or shall not be admitted. That is a matter which is left exclusively to the Assembly. The Assembly is the only body who can determine the admission of new states. I take it that all that this declaration in the Reparations Agreement means is that the powers represented at the Supreme Council, say to Germany; "If you do not carry out this agreement we will not ourselves sanction your admission," and they would justify that no doubt on the ground that if she did not carry out those terms she would not have furnished evidence of her sincere intention to observe her international obligations. I hope I have answered by hon. friend's question.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Thank you.


Newton Wesley Rowell: You ask, Will the League succeed? Its form may change, but the ideals for which it stands will prevail because they meet a great human need. It has been said truly: 'Humanity has struck her tents and fs on the march.' She is leaving the low plains, strewn with the bodies of her dead, where the sounds of her drums are almost drowned by the cries of the wounded and the dying. She is on the march to the high uplands, which promise a new order and a better day. The way may be long and difficult;- therfe are many obstacles to be overcome and heights to be scaled; the journey may cost much in tears, in blood and in treasure-but the bugle will never sound the retreat. Humanity is on the march and will not

pitch her tents till the heights are scaled and the uplands are reached. Canada, breathing the free and invigorating air of the new world, untrammeled by either the prejudices or'the traditions of the old, is in the very forefront of this advance. If our faith and our courage fail us not we will keep our place until the goal is reached.


Mr. FERNAND RINFRET (St. James) :: Mr. Speaker, I will frankly admit at the start that it is not my intention to join in the chorus of praise a,nd eulogy which has been uttered with respect to the new Prime Minister by the originators of this debate. Not that I underestimate the ability of the Prime Minister, but to my mind his name is associated with some of the nefarious measures which have been put through this ' Parliament and from which the Canadian people are still suffering. I consider him responsible to a certain degree for the feeling of unrest and mistrust which at present prevails in the country, and in strict accordance with the terms of the amendment of the leader of the Opposition I charge him with usurping power and occupying an indefensible and unconstitutional position at the head of a Government which has not been, and never will be, given mandate by the Canadian people. I am not ignorant of the courtesy that we should certainly accord to the right hon. gentleman, but I consider the debt has been paid, and possibly overpaid, by our leader himself, whose courtesy was met in a very strange way. What did the Prime Minister, with that sardonic smile and irrepressible irony which are customary to him, say to the leader of the Opposition. Let me quote the Prime Minister's words:
I assure him here and now that if the essential humour of his addresses is always to be so thinly covered by a veil of argrument and satire our relations will never be disturbed in parliament.
Possibly, Mr. Speaker, I should not interfere, but I may be permitted to say that if weak arguments make for good friendships we should not feel so bitter towards the Prime Minister on account of his last speech.
The debate on the Address and the amendment thereto has already lasted for a week and has wandered somewhat from the main point in discussion, as is often the case under such circumstances. My intention is to restrict my observations to the main point of discussion, and to discuss the right of the present Government to retain power and to administer the affairs of the

country under the prevailing circumstances. To do so it may be necessary to throw a brief glance at what has taken place in, or around, the Government since the last session. My right hon. friend became Prime Minister on a warm July day last summer. The Unionist party was dying, in fact it had become moribund, and it seemed imperative to its leaders that a new group, or the semblance of a new affiliation, should be formed; and much, Mr. Speaker, as Unionism had been formed in 1917 to cover the sins and the omissions of the war Tory party, this right hon. gentleman was entrusted with the task of forming the semblance of a new party to cover the sins and omissions of Unionism. Accordingly the right hon. gentleman was chosen-not by the people, not even by a convention representing the Conservative Party at large; he was chosen by a group of parliamentarians who formed part of the crumbling remnants of the majority of 1917. The right hon. gentleman was satisfied with the choice, and with the little authority that it conveyed, and he went to work on his programme and began his appeal to the people. Do not, Mr. Speaker, be deceived by this statement. When I say " his appeal to the people " I do not mean an appeal through the polls but an appeal through speeches. He did not tell the people " Vote and decide for yourselves." He said "Listen and see how nicely I can speak." Then my right hon. - friend formed his Cabinet. He gathered around him some of the Ministers of the old Administration who were ready to serve unde: him and he infused new blood by choosing two of his partisans out of the majority of 1917. He was very careful to choose them in constituencies where there would be no risk in the by-election. My right hon. friend's party is bragging about these victories in St. John and Colchester; but, Mr. Speaker, it was not surprising that out of over one hundred partisans the Government was able to pick two constituencies where it could safely risk an election. I will frankly admit the personal reputation of my right hon. friend as a great debater. This it was that gave rise to the legend, very carefully spread throughout the country, that the new Saviour was born, that the old Tory Party had been rejuvenated, and that very bright days were ahead fo: the Ministry. By that time the magnates of the new administration had got together and had decided upon a new title for the Party. They gave it the compound and complex name of the National Liberal and Conservative Party. It is very striking, Mr. Speaker, how history repeats itself. We have read of another period in our history when something like this took place. A speech of Hon. Edward Blake has often been quoted in this House, reciting what took place when the Liberal-Conservative Party was formed in the Eighties. I do not now wish to quote from that speech more than a few of the more striking passages. Here they are:
The Tory Party in the old world and in Canada has from time to time chosen to adopt aliases, it has chosen to adopt new names,- it has designated itself by a variety of epithets which it thought from time to time would conceal its identity, and would enable it to mislead under a new and more attractive guise. It was not the Tory Party at all I had to oppose when I first came to the County of Bruce. It was the Coalition Party-the "Party of Union and Progress." They were quite insulted if you called them Tories. Then there was a No-Party Party. Then there was a Patent Combination Party. Then it became the National Policy Party. As Liberal principles grew strong they have from time to time called themselves "Liberal-Conservatives", in order that they might get weak-kneed Reformers to join them because of the name liberal.
These remarks of the Hon. Edward Blake are very striking because again to-day we have a coalition looking for a name, or rather we have a title which misrepresents as M. Blake pointed out; we have a few week-kneed reformers, trailing round behind the right hon. gentleman who leads the Government.
Anyway, the Prime Minister went on his great speaking tour, and he first staged his Barnum-like circus in Sherbrooke. We feel very grateful to him for having chosen our native province to make his initial bow as the angel of peace and harmony. What was his message to the province of Quebec? That all the misunderstandings of the past were to be forgotten, that all the slanderous posters, all the code telegrams and all the vote manipulations were to be ignored; nothing survived, Mr. Speaker, but his great love for the province of Quebec. And the host of paid supporters, who had been given free transportation from Montreal to Sherbrooke, surrounded him on the platform and applauded him so heartily that the Tory press throughout the country was enabled to report that he was winning the heart of the province of Quebec, and to spread the belief in Ontario and the West that he was winning fresh support from us. This comedy of the Sherbrooke meeting, coupled with the by-elections in the Maritime provinces, was framed, I say, to convince the people that this new party was going to be very vigorous under the leadership of the right hon. gentleman.

But alas, a series of mishaps followed, and soon dispersed to the winds the "thin humour," as my right hon. friend would say, of that comedy. The first of these mishaps was his vain effort to have the Canadian people forget his own record and that of the past Administration and to confine their attention mainly to the tariff. It is true, there had been war scandals; it is true, there had been a general state of waste and incompetency; it is true, there had been a lamentable disregard of public interests; it is true, there had been a disastrous railway policy, originated by my right hon. friend and carried out to the point of collapse; it is true, there had been electoral shifts and distortions which were due to my right hon. friend's inventive genius. But that did not count-nothing counted but the tariff; and the Prime Minister, called to the bar of public opinion, assumed the attitude of the defendant in a court of justice who asked on what ground he was first to be tried, and said: "Try me, not on what I did in the past, but on what I will do in the future."
Another mishap was that {remarkable peroration delivered by the Prime Minister in Granby and other centres, when he portrayed himself as the nation's saviour and all his adversaries as nation wreckers, anarchists and bolshevists. I know that my right hon. friend has laboured very patiently to establish that he never .said that, but even his own explanation retains very much of the doubtful flavour of the original declaration. Here is what the Montreal Gazette reported of his Granby speech:
The Premier proceeded to show how the Parmer's Party was committed to free trade, and that the strength of that organization was enhanced by the undoubted fact that it had joined hands with and dragged behind it-all the malcontents and restless elements of the *country. "X do not say that the leaders of that party, much less their followers, want to overturn responsible government, but I do say that those with whom they have aligned themselves, as, for instance, the Winnipeg and Vancouver seditionists, had as their goal the upsetting of the system of government in Canada."
When the right hon. Prime Minister was confronted with these words this is the explanation he gave to Mr. Drury himself:
A new party has arisen in Canada, best described as a farmers' free trade party. It has issued a platform. It demands to be placed in power in Canada. It has covered under its banner and trails behind it every class of theorist and malcontent, and to-day, beyond all doubt, it constitutes the most numerous and strongest organization opposed to the present Government. "Indeed," added the Prime Minister, "at other points I plainly stated that the

farmers were not inimical to responsible government, but unfortunately had aligned with them many others who were."
In another instance when confronted with the charge of having said those words in Granby he was more concise-he flatly and emphatically declared that he had never said anything of the kind at Sherbrooke.
New mishaps came later in the shape of by-elections,-not in those safe constituencies which had been carefully chosen by the right hon. gentleman, but in by-elections in counties which were opened in the ordinary course of events. It is not my intention to analyze the vote in Yale,-that has been done before, and we all know that the majority of the Government dwindled practically to nothing. Nor is it my intention to analyze the vote which was given in East Elgin, an old Tory county, where the Farmers' candidate was elected.
But perhaps we should stop, and it is very refreshing to do so, at the result in West Peterborough. We now have the official figures of that election, and what do they show, Mr. Speaker? They show that not only the Liberal candidate had a plurality of over one thousand, but also that the Government candidate was defeated by the combined registered vote of his opponents to the extent of over four thousand. But we hear them say that the Tory vote was split between Mr. Burnham and Mr. Denne, and that the support given to Mr. Burnham would have been transferred to the Government's candidate had Mr. Burnham not been in the field. Well, let us see the kind of appeal Mr. Burnham made to the electorate in that particular instance. I have here his manifesto, but I will quote only the first two paragraphs, as they are very interesting: He states:
Owing to my resignation a by-election will be held here on February 7th. I resigned because when Liberals and others joined in electing me to support the Union Government of Sir Robert Borden in 1917, I promised, as did Sir Robert Borden and those supporting him, to go to the people in a general election when the war was over. Without that promise it would have been useless and unfair to ask for Liberal support. Union Liberals were warned against a trap, but they could not believe that anybody would betray their trust. And who would have believed it? The Union Governement was elected for the period of the war, and no longer.
But the war eneded and the Union Government ended,-
So states Mr. Burnham.
-and why was the promised general election not held? Because, without any mandate or mission from anybody on earth but themselves,
Messrs. Meighen and Calder seized the reins of

power and announced to an astonished Canada a new Government and a new party? "The National Liberal and Conservative Party." The members- of the Conservative Party and of the Liberal Party were directed to hand in their submission to the new Party without delay. Was there ever such a hold-up staged' before? This is the age of hold-ups, it is true, but till now no one has attempted to run off with two parties and a whole state.
It will be seen from this manifesto of Mr. Burnham that not only the Liberal vote and the Farmer vote of that constituency went against the candidate of the right hon. Prime Minister, but also at least fifty per cent of the Conservative vote polled by Mr. Burnham.
So significant was the result that the next morning an editorial appeared in the Montreal Gazette, which said:
Why not an appeal?
The Government has declared its intention to live out its term, and constitutionally has a right so to do. Its parliamentary majority may prolong its existence for nearly another two years. But, will it continue as a strong Ministry for that period? A majority somewhat perilous when Parliament prorogued has been reduced. The bye-elep-tions won by the Government mean merely the retention of seats, and indicate no new popular confidence, while the contested seats like East Elgin and West Peterboro have swung to the Opposition, and weakened to that extent the strength of the Ministry. Gqvernments are not constitutionally upset by loss of a bye-election or two, but no government can disregard the hand-writing; and above all no government can gain in the present, nor survive in the future, thht does not owe its existence to popular support.
Further, the Gazette says:
If more time permitted, Parliament might have another session, and, after redistribution of seats, dissolve the House. In ordinary course, this would he the way of procedure, the. way we have hoped would he pursued ; but in the circumstance of adverse results from recent by-elections the situation is changed, and the advice we have to give to the Government is to proceed with the Supply Bill and then permit the electorate to express its preference for parties in order that stable administration and confident policy may be carried on. The situation is now uncertain; the life of the Ministry hangs by a thread; and under this circumstance strong and effective administration of affairs is impossible.
Did my hon. friend pay any attention to this advice from his friends?


Henri Sévérin Béland: No.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Did he pay any attention to the popular verdict in Peterborough? Did the Government decide to appeal to the people? A few days later we had the reply in the Gazette correspondence emanating from Ottawa, with the following headlines, which were very clear:
New Ministers have already been Selected. Problem now is to Create Necessary Vacancies. By-Elections as Test Government's Fixed Policy

"Fixed policy."
-is to retain power for Two More Sessions.
I will not read the correspondence, but I would like to read the last paragraph:
If such an amendment was adopted, or the Government lost further by-elections, an darly appeal to the country would) be obligatory. Under/ such circumstances the Government will carefully select test constituencies, except in the Province of Quebec, where the choice is very limited. The Ontario constituencies in view are counted safe for the Government, as are the Western constituencies that will be offered representation in the Government. It is the fixed policy of the Government to retain power for two more sessions. v
The Gazette had foreseen the amendment which came from the Opposition.
Quite a curious policy. That was the response to the people. But, Mr. Speaker, the verdict in Peterborough was not "Reorganize;" it was: "Clear out." But my hon. friend will not clear out; he will reorganize in choice constituencies, of which the number is "very limited" in Quebec.
My right hon. friend has been angling for months in Quebec for a fish, as the member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) very aptly and very properly put it yesterday. But the fish do not seem to be in biting form just now. The hon. gentleman has come to us begging for support. In 1917 we were bad, disloyal citizens, pro-German, slackers; but now my hon. friend comes to us and begs us to aid him against another class of bad citizens-those anarchists, Bolshevists and revolutionary farmers from the West.
The action of the Ministry in my province has been very properly compared to that of the old farmer's dog which goes part of the way with every passer-by but always comes back alone. One of the passers-by has stopped at the gate-possibly I should say, sat on the fence, but in this case it seems that after looking him over the dog decided not to come back. Such was the situation when the House met a week ago.
After the Address in Reply had been moved the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) very properly offered a motion of non-confidence in the Government. By what right, asked the leader of the Opposition, does the Government hold power? If it is a new Government it should appeal to the people. If it is an old Government, its mandate ceased with the war.

He showed very clearly that the main issue in 1917 was the war, the sending of reinforcements to the Canadian Army in the trenches.


Andrew Ross McMaster: By conscription.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: only two speeches in support of the attitude of the Government, the speech of the Prime Minister himself and that of the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville (Mr. Gauthier), the one because he does not want to get out and the other because he is very anxious to get in. But the Government and its supporters have offered no argument; they have not even attempted to justify their course of action, their usurpation of power, their desperate clinging to office in face of an unwilling and ever protesting people.
But they say they we are not sincere. They say we are moved by political considerations. They say we are bluffing. Well, if they think we are not sincere, if they really think we are bluffing, why do not they call our hand? I say Mr. Speaker, that we are animated by no such motives. We are not seeking any party advantage. We are merely conveying to the foot of your Chair the persistent and ever-growing clamour of the Canadian people for a general election. This clamour can be heard all over the Dominion. It comes from the Pacific coast, from the mavellous region of the Rockies, from the great billowy plains of the West, from the industrial centres and the farming districts of Ontario, from the ever loyal and over-slandered province of Quebec, and from the peaceful yet progressive provinces by the Atlantic. All with one voice are claiming a right dearly fought for in earlier years, and enjoyed in the past, but which is denied them to-day- the right to elect their representatives. It may be that the general elections will bring back the Liberals to power; it may be that they will return the Farmers; it may be that they will give the victory to another group or party. But that is not the question; we are not arguing for advancement, we are arguing principles and the constitution; we are not clamouring for power for ourselves, but we are asking for power for whatever party can command a majority in a proper and newly elected Parliament representing the paramount will and the indestructible rights of the Canadian people.


Mr. JOHN WESLEY EDWARDS (Fron-tenac) :: Mr. Speaker, I should like to add my humble word of praise to those which have already been passed upon the mover and the seconder of the Address. I also wish to avail myself of this opportunity to convey to the Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen) my most hearty congratulations on his elevation to the high position which he now occupies. I think, Sir, when we lay aside our party differences, we are all
	,
agreed that the people of the Dominion of Canada, as much as the people of any other country in the world, have reason to be proud of the men who from time to time have occupied the position of Prime Minister of Canada, and it is my firm and pleasing conviction that in the present Prime Minister we have a man who will maintain the best traditions of his office, and be worthy of his distinguished predecessors.
The hon. member for Yale (Mr. Mac-Kelvie), in the course of his admirable address, made specific and special reference to the question of apples. It may be of interest to that hon. gentleman to know-[DOT] and I desire to bring this up while the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), is here, if he would not mind staying for a moment-that last year this question was brought up in the House in a speech made by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar). On that occasion the hon. member for Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) asked this question of the hon. member for Marquette:
Is the jion. gentleman in favour of making apples free?
The answer given by the hon. member for Marquette was:
Certainly, I am in favour of making apples free. My hon. friend from Annapolis is badly mistaken if he thinks he is putting a poser to me in that regard.
I commend the hon. member for Marquette for his candour in answering that question. There was no equivocation, no side-stepping, no quibbling. He was not at that time disposed to deal with that particular item of the tariff at all events, by a method which has since occurred to him-the method of easy stages. Now we know where the hon. member for Marquette, the leader of the Southeast party here, stands in regard to that particular item in the tariff. We also know the attitude of the Government. The Government stands for protection for the fruit industry. Now the question I wish to address to the hon. leader of the Opposition is the question that was put last session by the hon. member for Annapolis to the leader of the Southeast party. I wish to ask him this question:	Are you in favour of
making apples free? I trust my voice carried across to the hon. gentleman's desk.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. While the hon. member for Frontenac is quite within his right in submitting a question, I must point out to him that it would be a most

unusual proceeding1 if an hon. member who had the floor were at liberty to interrogate individual members in their seats and expect a reply. It is not in order. Ia has never been done, and it may not be done. The only occasion upon which a question can properly be put and an answer be expected, is when an hon. member who is speaking is addressed by an hon. member from his seat.


Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer) :: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether the hon. member for Frontenac is in order in defining a party by a point of the compass?


John Wesley Edwards: I do not think that it would be easy to define the party to which my hon. friend belongs by anything more definite than a point of the compass. I was alluding to its location in this chamber. It remains to be seen whether the party itself will define itself any more definitely in the future. Before I sit down I shall endeavour to show that it has not definitely defined its position so far, but as a matter of fact has shifted its position on many occasions, as my hon. friend from Red Deer has done more than once.


Michael Clark: Not on that
question.


John Wesley Edwards: I quite agree that it is within the right of an hon. member who is addressed not to answer or to answer as he sees fit. I do not think I am the first who has put a question of that kind. My object must have been very apparent. I thought it advisable to get a little definite information as to the attitude of the different parties in relation to the tariff. We know the attitude of two parties, and I thought it would be nice to get the attitude of the other party. But if the hon. leader of the Opposition does not choose to answer my question I have no right, of course, to press for an answer.
The leader of the Opposition, in the course of his speech the other day, dwelt entirely with the question of the right of the present Government to hold office. That was the burden of his song through out the whole of his lengthy and rather vociferous speech. The hon. gentleman *contended that Parliament should dissolve. On what does he base that contention? Let us briefly examine his remarks and see. He gave as one of the reasons, that some of the ministers who were in the cabinet in 1917 are not in the present Government. Well, I think I am correct
in saying that the Hon. A. G. Blair, who was a distinguished member of the Laurier government, at one time saw fit on a matter of Government policy to resign his portfolio, but I have never heard of anyone bringing that forward as a reason why the government of that day should dissolve parliament.
My hon. friend says that the prime minister who led the government in 1917 has resigned office, and a new Prime Minister has come in, and he gives that as a reason for dissolution. Well, that was not considered a sufficient reason for dissolution in 1896, when the late Hon. Sir Oliver Mowat resigned his position as Prime Minister of Ontario to take a seat in the Laurier Cabinet at Ottawa. A new Prime Minister was chosen for that province, but no perspn at that time considered, and least of all, the Liberals, that it was a reason why an election should fib brought on in that province. At the same time, in the province of Nova Scotia, the present member for Shelburne and Queen's (Hon. Mr. Fielding) resigned the Premiership and a new man was appointed to take his place. No one advanced that as a reason for dissolution of the Provincial Legislature. Nor was it advanced as a reason for dissolution of Parliament when the late Rt. Hon. Sir Mackenzie Bowell resigned his position as Prime Minister of this country. That being one of the contentions advanced by the leader of the Opposition has nothing to, back it up.	\
He says that the Government has no right to carry on because a number of hon. gentlemen who formerly sat on this side of the House have withdrawn their support from the Government and now occupy seats across the floor. Well, if the leader of the Opposition could say to the Government :	" A number of Liberals who were
elected in 1917 as Liberal-Unionists have withdrawn their support from the Government of the day, having seen the light in the window, and have crossed over to my side of the House and now give me the allegiance which they formerly gave you," 

if he could say that, he could at least draw some comfort from the fact and his arguments would show some force. But if we examine the departure of gentlemen who formerly sat on this side of the House and are now opposite, we find that the very fact of their segregating themselves in a separate part of the Chamber, the very fact which is taken by the leader of the Opposition as an indication that those gentlemen no longer have confidence in this Gov-

ernment, or at least can no longer give it their support, is also evidence that they have no confidence in the party led by the leader of the Opposition.
But Mr. Speaker, if defections from a party are a reason for dissolution, then what is the position of the leader of the Opposition? Have there been no defections from his ranks? In this House yesterday we listened to a very vigorous speech delivered by the hon. member for St. Hya-cinthe (Mr. Gauthier), and I do not think that any one who heard that speech could gather from it that that hon. member, one of the most stalwart Liberals of Quebec, has any confidence in the present leader of the Opposition or would like to see him at the head of a Government. I could not gather anything like that from his remarks. But not only in this House, but from one end of this country to the other we have ample evidence of defections from the Liberal party as at present constituted and led.
The leader of the Opposition put the question several times: By what right does the Prime Minister lead the Government? I should like to ask him a similar question. By what right does he continue to lead the Liberal party? What is a party? Is it merely an aggregation of men who blindly follow some one who has been chosen as leader? Or is an aggregation of men who subscribe to and endorse certain political platforms and policies? I could not do better, perhaps, than to quote the definition given by the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) yesterday. He said that a political party is an association of men who have joined themselves together for the purpose of advancing the public interests on certain principles of policy which they hold in common. Well, if we are to judge the Liberal party by that definition, we are in the position of having no party to judge.
The Liberal party to-day in this House is a thing of shreds and patches. I doubt very much if you can find half a dozen men sitting behind the Leader of the Opposition who come under the definition given by the member for Brome, as holding views in common. In one part of the country one of them is a free trader, so he says; in another part of the country sofne other member of the same party is an ardent protectionist. The same convention which in August, 1919, selected the present leader of the Opposition to that position also framed a political platform. Has the leader of the Opposition lived up to the pledge he gave to carry that platform into effect?

My hon. friend from St. James (Mr. Rinfret) referred to by-elections. Let us see what some of those by-elections disclosed in the way of departure from certain principles which were laid down in that convention. In the constituency of Yale we find the present leader of the Opposition supporting a candidate who declared that he stood for protection, repudiating that particular part of the Liberal platform dealing with the principal necessaries of life in the way of food. In the constituency of Peterborough we find him supporting a candidate who repudiates the platform of the Liberal party in so far as the tariff as it affects industries is concerned. The Liberal candidate in Peterborough did not say that he endorsed or stood by the Liberal platform. On the contrary, he says: "That is not my platform. My platform is contained in the word "Peterborough" and I stand for the retention of the tariff, for the retention of protection to Peterborough industries. In the constituency of East Elgin the Liberal candidate did not come out as endorsing the platform formulated in 1919 but on the contrary said that his views had not changed, that his views were the same as they were before that platform was formulated. The leader of the Liberal party went to East Elgin and in endorsing the candidature of the Liberal candidate he repudiated the whole of the Liberal platform, as he repudiated it in part in Yale and also in Peterborough.
By what right then does the present leader of the Opposition assume to lead the Liberal party? There are, I venture to say, many men in this country who gathered at the Liberal convention of 1919 and helped to formulate the platform-men who have not been trained in political acrobatics as the leader of the Opposition has and who find it impossible to follow the contortions of that gentleman in political matters. I cannot conceive and I cannot believe that the men who gathered at that convention from all parts of Canada and after careful deliberation, formulated, a platform, can continue to recognize as a true leader a gentleman who has saerified them-sacrificed his party, the platform of that party, and every pledge he made- on the altar of political expediency, at one time in one constituency supporting a candidate who repudiates most emphatically one part of his platform and on another occasion supporting another candidate who repudiates another part of his platform. It seems to me, Sir, that the leader of the

Opposition, in view of his record during the past year, is the last man who should ask the leader of the Government by what right he holds his present position.
The leader of the Opposition has accused the Government of being usupers. Usurpers indeed! Are we then to consider as usurpers the men who have consistently adhered to a policy which has been the recognized policy on tariff matters in this country for forty years? Are we to consider those men usurpers and to regard as bona fide a gentleman who for the sake of attaining to the position of leader of a party endorsed a platform in its entirety and broke almost every plank of that platform as soon as he assumed the office which he now holds? If any person, is entitled to be called a usurper of office it is the present leader of the Opposition.
That hon. gentleman has stated that in the election of 1917 there was only one issue before the country and that issue was the war. He laboured at some length by quotations from the speeches of hon. gentlemen on this side to show that that was the only issue in the election of 1917. I think he exerted himself needlessly in that regard. There was one issue in the election of 1917 and that issue was of such vast importance as to overshadow every other thought that might be in the mind of a man running for Parliament. I think, therefore, it is quite right to say that the issue, and practically the only one, in the last election was the war and the carrying of it on to a successful conclusion. There were strong reasons for doing what was done at that time; there were strong reasons why that should be the issue. In 1914 we obtained by voluntary enlistment some ninety-six thousand men in Canada. In 1915 we obtained one hundred and ten thousand. In 1916 we obtained one hundred and seventy-nine thousand. In 1917 we obtained only fifty-six thousand. No one will claim that the need for men was less in 1917 than it was in any of the preceding years-the need was greater.
In Great Britain the need was recognized by all classes of the population and by none more so than by the women. Sir, some two million eight hundred thousand women in that little island were engaged in what may properly be called war service. Two hundred and seventy thousand of them were engaged in agriculture, tilling the fields and .reaping the crops. Eight hundred and nineteen thousand were engaged in the metal trades; over seven hundred thousand were engaged in making munitions, and sixteen thousand five hundred were working in the shipyards. There was strong need if we were to maintain our national honour and be true to our pledge to back up the boys who had gone overseas, for the action that was taken in 1917, and good and sufficient cause why the war should be the main and practically the only issue.
During the years up to the election of 1917 the Government of this country was burdened with such responsibility as I venture to say never fell to the lot of any previous Government in Canada. Nevertheless they carried on. During those years the present leader of the Opposition was in a foreign country in close association with the greatest and most unscrupulous profiteering plutocrat on the face of the earth. When the election came on and the issue was whether Canada was true to the boys overseas or not-that in a word was what the issue amounted to-the present leader of the Opposition returned to Canada, became a candidate in the election, and did all he possibly could to prevent reinforcements from being sent overseas.
That was his attitude at that time, and no amount of declamation, no amount of bombast and no amount of vociferous vituperation on the part of the leader of the Opposition can hide that record. It is there, the people of this country know it- and when I say "the people of this country" I mean the people of all parties in this country. I am sure I am speaking what is right when I say that thousands of Liberals from one end of Canada to the other will never follow the hon. gentleman who leads the Opposition, and that they would regard it as a calamity if he ever came to occupy the position of Prime Minister.
My hon. friend from St. James (Mr. Rinfret) said it was striking how history repeats itself. Yes, there are some striking examples of that. Away back in 1867, when men were just as strong-willed as are the men of to-day, when they were just as partisan as are their descendants of the present day, there were men big enough and broad enough to lay aside their party differences of opinion and to unite for a great purpose. Fifty years later history repeated itself, and the descendants of those men, to the everlasting honour of Canada, were big enough and broad enough to lay aside party differences and unite for a great purpose-the purpose of keeping faith with the boys who went over-



seas. Everybody knows the attitude of the men who were elected in 1917 on that great issue, and everybody knows the attitude of the hon. the leader of the Opposition. No amount of eloquence on his part can cover up his attitude at that time, nor make the red-blooded people of Canada have confidence in him.
The hon. the leader of the Opposition says that this Parliament has no right to deal with the tariff issue. He asked the question: Will any one say that the tariff is an issue arising from the war? Well, I would say: Yes, most emphatically, beyond question the tariff is an issue arising from the war. Can any person question that we have changed international commercial relations to-day, and that those changed relations have been brought about and are directly due to the great conflict through which we have passed? Every country in the world has been forced to recognize the effect which that war has had upon international commercial relations, and every country is studying the problem now and taking steps to adjust its tariff to meet the changed conditions. Most certainly the tariff, as it has been forced upon us by the war, is a condition arising from the war. The hon. gentleman says that we should not deal with the tariff, that it should be dealt with only by a Parliament truly representative of the people. Well, he did not hold that view last year. What has brought about the change in his mind? In the debates of last session he thought it was all right for a tariff resolution to be brought down and debated. What makes the difference between now and this time last year with regard to this Parliament dealing with the tariff?
But let us take him at his word. The tariff is a very important matter. I could quote from a great many public men, including the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding), who for fifteen years held the office of Finance Minister and had much to do with tariff matters- I could quote him and many others to the effect that the tariff can not be tinkered with every few months, but has to be dealt with periodically. While I quite appreciate the importance of dealing with the tariff, my own opinion is that this Parliament would make a mistake if it dealt drastically with it at this session. It may be advisable to make certain changes and alterations, but I do not think the present time opportune to make any very general changes, especially in view of the fact that our principal trade is with our neighbour

to the south and with Great Britain. A new party has been elected to office in the United States, a party which gave very definite and positive pledges in regard to tariff revision, and it seems to me that it would be the part of wisdom for this Parliament to defer a general revision of the trtiff until our neighbours to the south have given some indication, as they are bound to give, in redemption of their recent election pledges. We are more dependent upon the United States so far as this matter is concerned than they are upon us.
But appreciating the importance, Mr. Speaker, of dealing with the tariff, if it is advisable that it should only be dealt with by a Parliament truly representative of the people, then it seems to me that the leader of the Opposition in that very circumstance has adva.nced a good reason why there should not be a dissolution. This Parliament cannot be taken as truly representative of the people from the standpoint of representation by population; that can only be remedied after the census is taken. A few months from now that census will be taken, and after a redistribution we will have a Parliament truly representative of the peoeple, assuming, of course, that the redistribution will take into consideration the changes in population in the various provinces and in the various centres. No one can reasonably argue that an hon. gentleman representing a constituency of fifteen or twenty thousand people should have a say which would be as strong as that of three representatives from other parts. Yet it is true that until redistribution is effected we shall have some members representing a population of 70,000 or 80,000, while others, as in the case of the hon. gentleman from Brome (Mr. McMaster) represent a population of 13,000 or 14,000. So far as the matter affects the question of a parliament truly representative of the people dealing with the tariff, I do not think it needs any argument. '
The member for St. James stated that fourteen members had been elected to this side in 1917 by the soldier vote; at least, that is the way I understood him. The statement of the hon. member is absolutely incorrect. I have before me a summary of the general election returns for 1917. All but four of the 82 members who were elected to this House from Ontario were elected by the civil vote, without regard to the soldier vote at all. Of the four, three were Conservative-Unionists and one

was a Liberal-Unionist. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the member elected for any constituency would have obtained at least as large a proportion of the votes of the soldiers overseas as he would of the votes of the soldiers who cast their ballots at home. If you allowed the member for Essex South only the same percentage of overseas votes as he received of the home soldier vote and gave the other votes to his opponent, he would still have a comfortable majority. That narrows it down to only three seats in Ontario which could possibly have been affected by any manipulation of the soldier vote, and there has been no charge that the slightest attempt was made to manipulate the soldier vote in Ontario.
Let us consider the province of Quebec. Out of sixty-five seats it is true that on that occasion only three supporters of the Government were elected. The hon. Minister of Marine had 1,446 of a majority of the civil vote, and 1,957 of a majority of the soldier vote, so that he could have made a present of 1,000 votes to his opponent and still have a majority of some 1,400. The member for St. Antoine had a majority of 1,583 of the civil vote; he could have given his opponent 1,000 soldier votes and still have had a majority of 1,100. In the case of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty), he had a majority of 2,099 of the civil vote, and could have given his opponent 1,000 of his soldier votes and still have had a majority of 1,930. Surely the members of the Opposition who were elected by acclamation in 1917 have no grievance so far as any alleged manipulation of votes is concerned. I do not think that many hon. gentlemen on the other side were very deeply concerned or very much affected by the soldier vote. The member for Yamas-ka got eight soldier votes, all told. The member for St. Denis got 199 and one of his opponents got five. The member for Kamouraska received 11 soldier votes and his opponent 4. The member for Joliette received none and his opponent 3. So that for some reason the soldier vote did not seem to cut much ice down there; there did not seem to be many soldier votes in the province of Quebec.
I could give the details of the votes in all the other provinces, but I will sum it up in this statement which I have made before in the House, and which I am prepared to prove; that not one hon. member sitting in this House owes his majority to any manipulation of the soldier vote. Every hon. gentleman elected to this House in
1917 would have been elected if you accorded to him the same percentage of the overseas vote as he received of the home soldier vote and gave the balance to his opponent. I have the figures which will prove my statement to the hilt. Therefore, the remarks of the hon. member for St. James this afternoon in this connectibn are not borne out by the facts. The hon. member for St. James referred to several things in connection with which he considered the Government delinquent. But he did not go into details; he simply made a general, blanket statement, asserting that the Government's railway policy was wrong, that there had been extravagance, and so on.
I can only assume that the reason why the hon. member did not attempt to back up his general statement with details was because he had no details with which to back them up-that is the only conclusion that I can come to.
But I should like to ask the hon. gentleman:	If the Government was guilty of
any of the sins or delinquencies which he charges them with, why did his leader move an amendment in such bald and naked terms? Why did his leader not move an amendment condemning the Government for some act that the Government had performed or some delinquincies on the part of the Government? It is strange that in all these by-elections, in all the , speeches made from one end of the country to the other by the leader of the Opposition and those that supported him, they have unconsciously paid a tribute to the Government that, they say, should resign office because, while the Government has had a lot of work to do and has had to deal with millions and hundreds of millions of dollars, particularly during these years of the war, the Opposition, in all their speeches, have made no specific charges against the Government in regard to their conduct of public business. They have not said: This Government should resign office because, during the years since 1917, it has failed to redeem its pledges to the people; it has failed to do properly the work which fell! upon it to do. The only reason advanced by the leader of the Opposition is in effect: You have performed the work that you were supposed to perform and you have done it well, so well indeed that I am not finding any fault with it; but we want you to step down and out, because we want a chance to get in. Talk about holding on to office! There never was, I suppose, an hon. gentleman who took any part in the

political life of this country who has manifested such a crazy eagerness and at the same time an entire unfitness for office as the leader of the Opposition.
By-elections! West Peterborough, the one to which my hon. friends like to refer! Well, the by-election in West Peterborough resulted as it did. West Peterborough at least elected a man who repudiated the platform of the leader of the Opposition and was assisted in the election by that leader himself. That is the situation so fas as West Peterborough is concerned. But the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret) quotes'some remarks made by the former member for Peterborough West, Mr. Burnham, in which he expresses his opinion as to what should be done, and says that Parliament should dissolve, that there should be a general election. Does the leader of the Opposition hold that view? Apparently, yes. Why does not the leader of the Opposition show by acts that he holds that view? Why is it that he permits one of his principal lieutenants to hold two seats in this House? Why does he not prevail upon him to resign one of those seats and bring that question up as a great issue? The reason why, it seems to me, is about the same as the reason why his amendment is so naked and bald as it is. We are told by the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville (Mr. Gauthier) that one of the constituencies to which I refer is a constituency which would be disposed to favour free trade and that the other constituency is just as strongly disposed towards protection. The leader of the Opposition, who is so extremely courageous in regard to wanting a general election, is afraid to open the constituency which favours free trade for fear that he would have to appear on the platform and endorse, rather more openly than he cares to do down in this part of the country, the doctrine of free trade. He is equally afraid to have the other constituency opened for fear that he would be obliged, more openly than he cares to do, to advocate a policy of protection and thus lose some of the support which he hopes to get in the West, and which he will never get. That is one of the reasons why, I think, he does not allow one of those constituencies to have representation in this House, why he does not test out his view by having the hon. gentleman (Mr. Lemieux), who represents Gaspe and Maisonneuve, resign one of those seats and give an opportunity for an election. The leader of the Opposition has not 
shown any very strong disposition for an election in the past. It is true he has talked of elections, but when the elections were on in St. John and Colchester, the hon. gentleman, who was talking of elections and saying: "Oh, yes, we want to go to the country; we want to test public opinion, did not put up a man in Colchester and test public opinion. He took good care not to go down there; he went three thousand miles away. That is characteristic of the hon gentleman; he has done most of his fighting at a distance of about three thousand miles.
I could quote from remarks .made, in times past, by many hon. gentlemen opposite, which, I think, would very strongly support this Government in the attitude it has taken, and support the members on this side in taking the course which they are taking. We have on this side men who, it is true, were elected as Liberal Unionists, others who were elected as Conservative Unionists, men who previously to 1917 followed one or other of the old political parties. On the other side of the House we have some hon. gentlemen saying that certain gentlemen on this side are untrue to Liberal principles in staying on this side of the House. I could quote from the utterances of a number of very prominent men to show that any Liberals who were elected in 1917 to sit on this side of the House are more consistent in sitting here and supporting this Government than they would be if they went across and sat behind the leader of the Opposition. What was the attitude of the Liberal party as regards the tariff for the fifteen years it was in power? Was its attitude for the fifteen years it was led by the late Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier in keeping with the platform of the Liberal party as laid down in August, 1919? Not by any means. Take for instance, the words of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in regard to the industries of the country. I am quoting now from a speech which was sent broadcast throughout the country, a speech delivered by that right hon. gentleman on the 7th March, 1911. He says:
I pass to a more important objection-
He was speaking of reciprocity.
-really the only objection of any consequence that I know of. That objection is that this agreement will imperil our industries. How will it imperil our industries ? This agreement is concerned chiefly with natural products. There are no manufactured products dealt with in it except agricultural implements.

He might have gone on and said there was no very serious reduction made on agricultural implements. It is true that the attitude of the Liberal party of that day, led by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, was in favour of taking the duties off foodstuffs, but so far as manufactured articles were concerned he made it very clear indeed that his attitude and the attitude of his party was not to interfere with the industries of this country. Therefore, I say that hon. gentlemen who are sitting on this side of the House are more consistent in their attitude on the trade policy of this country, which has been followed by all Governments for the last forty years, than are hon. gentlemen who sit on the other side of the House, and who laid down a platform-and that is the only guide we have as to their views-which they say themselves it is not advisable to attempt to carry out. Take, for instance, the statement of the hon. member for Shelbourne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) in the House last session. Discussing the tariff, he said:
I do not thitak myself, as things are going now, that we can look to that party for a sound tariff policy.
He was speaking of the Farmers' party. I entirely agree with him. I do not think we can. He went on:
What then? I do not even think we can expect to g-et a sound and safe tariff policy by a too rigid adherence to every line and every letter of the Liberal Tariff platform. I think myself that we will find that we are all prone in framing platforms to put things perhaps a little more strongly than is wise, and we all find when we come to the responsibly of office that we may have to modify our views.
What faith, Mr. Speaker, can you place in a party which has for one of its principal men a man who can make a statement like that?. The hon. member for Shelbourne and Queen's took part recently in the election in Peterborough, and of course he was told by the Liberal candidate there that it would not do to talk free trade in Peterborough, but, on the contrary, an assurance must be given to the people of that industrial centre that their industries would not be imperilled. What was the attitude of the hon. gentleman? Did he get up and quote to them from the platform of the Liberal party framed at the convention in Ottawa in August, 1919? No, Mr. Speaker, on the contrary he gets up and says:	Why be alarmed, you Liberals,
for your industries? Did we not make promises previous to 1896? Did we not say from one end of Canada to the other that
if we only had an opportunity we would destroy protection root and branch, obliterate it entirely,-that was our statement in 1896, but gentlemen, did we do it?-for fifteen years we went back on the pledges and promises we had made previous to 1896; for fifteen years we proved false to the pledges which we had given throughout this country in the preceding eighteen years, so, surely, you men of Peterborough need no further guarantee that we can be false to our pledges again.	,
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at 8 o'clock.


John Wesley Edwards: Mr Speaker, I had just about concluded my remarks before recess when you called it 6 o'clock. I have very few words to add to what I have already said, and I shall therefore occupy only a very few minutes more. I was about to call attention to a remark by the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret), who referred rather slightingly to certain members on this side of the House as weak-kneed reformers, and I believe that in connection with that remark he quoted some statement made some years ago by the late Hon. Edward Blake. Well, I presume there were people, tyros in politics like the hon. member, who years ago called Edward Blake names when he saw fit to dissociate himself from his leader on a great matter of public policy. I think, therefore, hon. members on this side may pass very lightly the derogatory remarks made by the hon. member for St. James in his speech.
Now, I want to put this question in all seriousness to the members of this House: Suppose this amendment should carry, what then? Let me give the opinion of the leader of the Opposition on that point. Speaking in the Peterborough election, as reported in the press, the hon. gentleman said that if this Government did as he claimed it should do and resigned, the constitutional procedure would be for His Excellency the Governor General to call upon the leader of the Opposition to form a Government and that the leader of the Opposition-of course, there is no doubt about this-would immediately accede to the request. That would not mean a general election; it would mean that the Cabinet ministers selected by the hon. gentleman would have to go to the country for election. So that in the event of this amendment carrying, the constitutional procedure would be that the hon. gentleman, on the advice of His Ex-
, 134

cellency, would endeavour to form a Government to carry on for the rest of the life of this Parliament, another year and a half or two years. On what mandate would he carry on? Is there any doubt that this is the course he would take? He has intimated that he would not proceed with a 'general tariff revision until he had put his house in order, and perhaps it would be several years before the question would be submitted to the people in regard to the tariff. The whole attitude of the hon. gentleman, borne out by his own speeches, goes to show that he is not, and has not been, actuated by high motives and lofty principles in making the demand he has made upon the Government to resign, but that he has been impelled solely by the desire to obtain office with the fruits thereof for himself. That is the situation.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I am sure the hon. member will allow me to make a statement in correction. He is purporting to quote a speech I made at Peterborough. If he will look at that speech he will discover that it is exactly the opposite of what he has said. What I stated in Peterborough was that if the present Government were defeated on a want of confidence vote, and the leader of the Opposition were called upon to form a Government, the Government so formed would not proceed to deal with the tariff, but would dissolve Parliament and have a general election and that the issue on the tariff would be discussed at that election. Nothing would be done by this Parliament to deal with the tariff one way or the other. This is the opposite of what my hon. friend has said.


John Wesley Edwards: Well, I wonder just how much nearer the people would be to relief if the hon. gentleman had his way, than if this Parliament continued for the rest of its term. The hon. gentleman says he would go ahead and form his Government. That would take some time; the year 1921 would be well on the way. I venture to say that if this motion carried and the hon. gentleman were called upon to form a Government, he would take good care that he put his fences in order as well as he possibly could. I think I am absolutely safe in saying that he would carry on until after redistribution had taken place. If he were called upon to form a Government, some time must elapse before he could get under way and the census, or at least that part of it relating to population, would have been taken. Does he mean to say that he wouid disregard that and proceed on the present distribution of
fMr. Edwards.]
constituencies and go to the people? I should like to ask him that question.


Mr. H. A. MACKIE:: Ask him now.


John Wesley Edwards: I have been reminded that while it is perfectly proper for an [DOT] hon. member to ask me a question it is not competent for me, under the rules of the House, to ask another member any questions.
, I do not intend to be called to order in that regard again. There is only one other thing to which I wish to refer. In the speech made by the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) and also in that of the hon. member for St. James, we find very slighting references by both gentlemen to what they term a desire on the part of the Prime Minister (Hon. Mr. Meighen) to court the favour of the province of Quebec. They declare that the Prime Minister has endeavoured to get Cabinet representation from that province; that being eager to obtain increased representation he has made overtures to the province of Quebec in that direction. Well, suppose that were true; is there anything unworthy in the supposition?
The province of Quebec is the oldest, the largest, and certainly one of the most important, of the provinces of Confederation. I am sure every person realizes and regrets -no one to a greater degree than the Prime Minister himself-the fact that Quebec has not greater representation in the Cabinet than it has to-day. Is it unworthy on the part of the Prime Minister that he should like to see that province with proper representation? Is that something to provoke sneers from' hon. gentlemen opposite? It seems to me that the thinking men of the province of Quebec will view this matter in a different light from the way in which hon. gentlemen opposite regard it, if we are to judge from their remarks.
What does it disclose? We had some time ago, and from time to time we still have, little scraps in the Globe. The editorial utterances of that paper indicate the object and purpose of the whole propaganda. The Globe on the 4th August last said that the present Prime Minister had made a speech in this House bitter and stinging in its hostility and antagonism to the province of Quebec. The Prime Minister, speaking in the city of Sherbrooke, referred to this statement of the Toronto Globe and explicitly and most emphatically denied it, and he asked that paper to publish one single line or sentence

that he had ever uttered at any time indicating hostility or unfriendliness to Quebec.
Up to date the Globe has made no attempt to justify the lying assertion which its columns contained on the 4th August. It was and is a part of the plan of that paper to assist gentlemen like the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster), the hon. member for St. James, and others, in carrying on a propaganda the purpose and object of which is to solidify the people of that Province against fhis Government by appeals to race prejudice. That is the whole purpose and object of these gentlemen, and that is what is behind the sneers which they pass across the floor of the House to the Prime Minister who in exhibiting friendliness for the province of Quebec to-day as Prime Minister is exhibiting a sentiment no different from that which he has manifested throughout his public life. It is a cheap kind of political propaganda, it is an unworthy propaganda to carry on, but it is the kind of propaganda which has been and is still being carried on by certain hon. gentlemen opposite. I am glad to know that there is at least one member from the province of Quebec, the hon. member for St. Hyaeinthe-Rouville (Mr. Gauthier) who has disassociated himself from such unworthy attacks as those indulged in by the member for Brome and the juvenile member for St. James.
I challenge the leader of the Opposition, or any of those sitting behind him, to quote one single sentence, one single line, one single thought expressed in words by the present Prime Minister of Canada at any time, in this House or out of it, which has indicated the slightest feeling of hostility or unfriendliness to the people of the province of Quebec. I do not wonder at the member for Brome giving utterance to such statements as those referred to, but the member for St. James is a young man and being a young man he should have one of the characteristics of youth-he should have courage and he should have the courage to tell the truth. And Mr. Speaker while the Globe took a course in regard to the Prime Minister which it could not justify and has never attempted to justify, the member for St. James this afternoon was careful not to make a specific charge of such a character against the Prime Minister or any member sitting on this side. In the speech that he had prepared for circulation in the province of Quebec he arranged his words for the express purpose of conveying a thought which
he had not the courage to give utterance to in this Chamber.
I, Mr. Speaker, have more confidence in the judgment and sense of fair play of the people of Quebec than have these hon. gentlemen who profess to speak for that province, and my confidence in their judgment and sense of fair play is such that I believe in the course of time they will ask the men who are making these charges and indulging in these unwarranted statements to back up their charges and assertions with facts, and back them up in a way that will leave no doubt as to their truth or falsity. Because you cannot fool the people all the time My hon. friends from Brome and St. James may think that they can make unfounded statements with impunity, statements which will be accepted by the people of Quebec, but the time will come when the people will demonstrate that they are fair minded, and that they are going to judge these questions on their merits and judge public men according to their undoubted record. On that issue, and judged in that manner, I have no doubt as to the result of the next election when it comes.
This Parliament was elected for a period of five years. It has carried on during the very trying years of the war and during the years which have succeeded the war- the years of reconstruction, perhaps even more trying than when the war was actually in progress. Because, Sir, while the war was on there was the cement of a common peril and a common danger to hold in check the making of reckless statements by certain hon. gentlemen opposite and some others throughout the country. But at the conclusion of the war unrest developed, as it always has developed after every great struggle, and the difficulties of the Government were accentuated. The problems which faced the Government, and the burden of responsibility which rested upon them, should have been such as to appeal to all patriotic Canadians to refrain from other than constructive criticism and to give a helping hand in the heavy task which confronted the Administration. As I said earlier in the day, one of the best tributes paid to the efficiency of this Government has unconsciously been paid to it by the leader of the Opposition, and those who toured with him, in the speeches they delivered in every province, because the burden of their cry in those speeches was not that there had been mal-administration or lack of efficiency by the Government or any of

the departments in handling public affairs. It was merely the clap-trap in regard to a mandate such as we have heard from that leader and from some of those who have attempted to echo his words.
Extravagance and bad handling of the finances of this country! What have they brought in support of such general statements? If you compare the financial situation of Canada on the 31st March, 1920, with its position on the 31st March, 1914, you will certainly find that the national debt has been largely increased; but if you look carefully into those finances, and the records of the Finance Department will bear me out, it will be found, Mr. Speaker, that taking into consideration some $246,000,000 of capital expenditure other than investments, in the period of time I have mentioned, the Government of Canada not only carried on under their heavy burdens and responsibilities, but out of the revenues of the Dominion they paid off obligations to the extent of over $640,000,000, nearly twice as much as our net debt the year before the war.
And, Mr. Speaker, they also make charges against this Government regarding its management of the finances of the country.
I ask those who make those charges to compare the financial position of the Dominion with that of other countries engaged in the war. They will find-and I make this statement believing it to be true-that the financial position of Canada is better than that of any other belligerent country, with the exception of the United States, and that the debt per capita at the conclusion of peace was less than that of any other country engaged in the war, with the exception of the United States.
Not only that, Sir, but during the war, while the Government practised the most rigid economy in regard to public expenditure, there was one class to which they gave special consideration. I refer to the agriculturists. I think the records will bear me out that during the years of the war and since, notwithstanding the financial obligations which were pressing upon us from all sides, federal assistance to agriculture was from three to four times as great as it was in the years previous to 1914. Add to that the fact, Sir, that our forests and mines and fisheries during the years I have mentioned have doubled their production, and that agriculture and manufacturing have trebled their output since 1914; and add to that the further fact that notwithstanding the generous contributions of the people to the various Victory 
Loans, amounting to about $2,000,000,000, on the 31st March, 1920, the savings deposits of our people were 87 per cent greater than they were on the>
31st March, 1914, or 7 per cent greater than those of the people of the United States for exactly the same period of time. These figures do not indicate that the country has been going to the dogs under the Administration which has held power during the years of the war and since. These figures do not warrant the talk, unsupported by anything in the shape of detailed information, of hon. gentlemen opposite. And it is no wonder that the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret) limited himself to a mere general blanket accusation against the Government.
These are the reasons, Mr. Speaker, why the hon. the leader of the Opposition and his followers are asking for the resignation of this Government; but the very reasons advanced by these hon. gentlemen are an unconscious tribute to its efficiency. If the hon. the leader of the Opposition could have brought charges against this Government or against any department of it of mismanagement of our national affairs, does any person think for one moment that he would not have included them in his amendment? But no; that was not the purpose and object of the hon. gentleman. On the contrary, he presents a mere naked, bald amendment. For what purpose? To prevent an amendment being moved which might possibly divide hon. gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House, and naturally that is something he did not want to do. I commend again to the hon. leader of the Opposition, as I did this afternoon, the frank stand taken by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) when a question was put to him last year. Any public man, if he has the courage of his convictions, should not be afraid to answer a straight question candidly and say where he stands on the tariff.
But the hon. the leader of the Opposition is afraid to move an amendment to the Address in reference to the tariff, although an invitation to do so is contained in the Speech from the Throne. He is afraid to move an amendment embodying in distinctive and definite form a statement in regard to the tariff for fear he would find hon. gentlemen sitting across on my extreme right not exactly agreeing with such an amendment; he is afraid to move an amendment containing some of the views which he and the hon. member for Shelburne and Queens (Mr. Fielding) expressed in Peterborough in order to pull

the wool over the eyes of the people in that constituency who are interested in their local industries; he is afraid to move an amendment along the line of his speeches in Peterborough for fear that he would not get the votes of the hon. gentlemen to my right on the other side; he is afraid to move one along the free trade lines which he advocated when he was out in the Prairie Provinces, telling the farmers that there is really no dilference between the Farmers' platform and his platform. He dare not come down to the province of Ontario or to the province of Quebec and make such statements. It would not do. ' He is in the position of either simply voting for the motion on the Address, or of moving this naked, bald amendment of his, because he dare not move anything more specific.
Well, I should like the people all over the Dominion to compare the wabbling, twisting, tortuous course of the leader of the Opposition with the straightforward attitude assumed by the leader of this Government, as exemplified in their speeches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Why, the twistings and turnings and contortions of the hon. the leader of the Opposition on political matters would make a snake turn green with envy. Where does he stand? He stands nowhere; he is like Mahomet's coffin-suspended between Heaven and Hell, and fit for neither place.
Mr. EMMANUEL d'ANJOU (Rimouski) (Translation) :	Mr. Speaker, before en-
' tering upon the few remarks I am about to make touching the amendment submitted by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, I wish to answer very briefly the hon. member from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards). I wish the hon. gentleman could understand me as well as I understood him. However, he was entitled to use his mother tongue and I shall avail myself of the same privilege.
The hon. member from Frontenac wonders how it is that the hon. Leader of the Opposition should claim the right of leading the Liberal party in this House, and throughout the whole country. The hon. member ought to know that in November, 1919, there was held in Ottawa a large convention attended by delegates from every section of Canada, to elect the leader of the Liberal party who was to succeed the late lamented Sir Wilfrid Laurier. That Liberal convention was evidently a democratic one.
Consequently the hon. Leader of the Opposition can say that he is really the leader
of the Canadian Liberal party and he has a perfect right to claim, before this House and before the country, that he holds in his hands the destinies of the Liberal party. Quite another thing was the choice of the present Prime Minister. He was not chosen by a great democratic convention of delegates from all parts of the country called for the purposes of choosing a leader; the hon. Prime Minister was chosen by his partisans in this House, and as the hon. members who sit at your right, Mr. Speaker, do not represent the public opinion of the whole country, he is therefore not the choice of the whole of Canada.
The hon. member for Frontenac says also that thousands of Liberals, not only from the province of Ontario, but from all the provinces of Canada, refuse to recognize the hon. Leader of the Opposition as the leader of the Liberal party. Well, he forgets the result of the election which has just taken place in Peterborough West. At any rate, if he be so confident, if he is so sure of his statement, let him advise the hon. Prime Minister to dissolve the House, and he will see that the hon. Leader of the Opposition has followers everywhere in Canada.
The hon. member for Frontenac claims that not one of the members who sit on your right, Mr. Speaker, owes his election to the soldiers' vote. He forgets the message which was sent, in Algonquin dialect or in gibberish, I don't know which, by the hon. Prime Minister of to-day, directing that the soldiers' votes be distributed a little everywhere in different Western constituencies. This was never denied, and moreover the hon. Prime Minister himself has claimed in this House that he was perfectly justified in this course and that the electoral law was broad enough to allow it.
In reference to the election in West Peterborough the hon. member for Frontenac said that the hon. leader of the Opposition had contradicted himself in that county. Well, Mr. Speaker, as you know, that election took place after the resignation of Mr. Burnham, given on the ground that he claimed to have been elected as a partisan of the Union Government and that this government was to cease to exist at the conclusion of the war. He showed a little more courage than his friends. True this brought on his defeat, but at any rate the electors of Peterborough had an opportunity of making their views known, not on the question of the tariff, not on the question of free trade or protection, but on the question whether the electors of Peter-

borough as well as those of the rest of Canada were asking the overthrow of this government. The four opposition candidates were asking for a vote of non-confidence in the present administration, and the answer was eloquent.
The hon. member for Frontenac is also one of those who have fallen in love with the province of Quebec. It will be something new for the whole country to learn that the hon. member for Frontenac is holding Quebec close to his heart-especially its population. Never since the hon. member has held a seat in this House has the province of Quebec had a more violent traducer. But the disciple is worthy of the master. He follows his leader, the present Prime Minister, who now tries to fawn upon the province of Quebec, after having been the instigator of all the insults, the cowardly outrages and accusations heaped against that province in 1917. This party, in anticipation of its defeat, is ready to fall on its knees in the hope of roping in the province of Quebec and maintaining itself in power. Of the genuflexions of these gentleman I want none, but it is a pleasure to me to see them in such posture. One thing, however, must not be forgotten. If the province of Quebec knows how to forgive, it also knows how not to forget, and when the time comes it will remember the campaign of slander and calumnies which has been carried on through the whole country, and the principal instigator of which was the present leader of the Government. It will be all very well for him to try and make love and offer kisses of dubious sincerity to the electors of the province of Quebec, they will remember that he has been the chief organizer of that campaign of slander and race hatred carried on in order to juggle away power in 1917.
The hon. member for Frontenac talks of the fair play of the province of Quebec. That was not the talk we heard in 1917. We were then a disloyal province, a band of slackers. To-day, the province of Quebec is the model province, the Mecca of Canada. It is the fount of good principles, the resort where one may breath liberty and peace.
For Quebec, now-we can say it with pride-holds one of the most enyiable positions in the Confederation, not only in respect of the liberty enjoyed by all its citizens, but also of the wise and progressive administration which directs its destinies.

Mr. Speaker, many members have occupied the floor since the beginning of the present debate. No one, however, has spoken in the French language, which is one of the two official languages of the country. In accordance with my custom I wished to pay my tribute to Her Majesty the French language, and I wanted to be the first one to do so. Since I have had the honour of occupying a seat in this House- an honour I owe to my good and faithful friends the electors of the county of Ri-mouski-I have always, at every session, protested against the refusal of the Government to recognize the rights of the French language in this parliament. Thus, at every session, with the exception of that of 1918, the mover and seconder of the Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne were English speaking members, completely ignorant of the French language and consequently incapable of making their speech in French. The Government has no valid reason to cloak their refusal for, as ,1 have often had the opportunity of stating, they have in the ranks of their followers a member who is very well qualified to move or second the Address in quite good French, I mean my hon. friend the member for Edmonton East (Mr. Mackie).
It may perhaps be said in certain quarters, that this is after all but a question of detail, and that I attach too much importance to the matter. What might be said does not much matter; I am conscious of doing my duty by protesting as I do at this moment and as I did in the past. The saying is always true that the best, the surest way of keeping a right secure is to exercise it. That is why, every time I have had occasion to take the floor in this House, I have always used my maternal tongue-the beautiful French language- for I always attached, as I still do the greatest importance to the survival in this country of our sweet parlance from France.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Hear, hear.
Mr. d'ANJOU: I saw with great pleasure that the mover of the Address in the Senate paid us the delicate compliment of using French in the first part of his remarks. This honourable gentleman is to be congratulated, and he may be assured of the gratitude of all the French Canadians of the Dominion. It is evident that he did not consult the members of the Government before taking this gracious course, as otherwise he would have been given the formal order not to pronounce a single French word.

The new Prime Minister-the chief of the new tri-colour party-has missed a fine occasion to prove his sincerity towards the province of Quebec, which he has wooed and so frequently complimented since the usurpation of his present office.
If the province of Quebec is now dear to his heart, why has he not recognized the rights of the majority of its inhabitants by calling upon some of his partisans to move or second the Address in French? He has not done so, because he is not sincere. Besides, nobody can believe in the sincerity of the chief of the political mountebanks who, in order to win the election of 1917, did not hesitate to defame the province of Quebec and besmirch everything that is French in Canada.
The right hon. Minister of Commerce, in the course of his address about the League of Nations, told us that the two official languages at the assembly of the League were French and English. He even added that French was the dominant language at the assembly. French is the diplomatic language, and those who plume themselves upon belonging to the superior race should be able to understand and speak that language if they really wish to show their superiority over all other races.
Again, I condemn with the utmost energy the refusal of the Government to do justice to the French element in this country, by denying to the French language the place of honour which it has a right to occupy in the deliberations of the Canadian parliament.
Now, Mr. Speaker, as most of the hon. members who have preceded me, I will not tarry over the discussion of the more or less important questions brought forward in the speech from the Throne. The main question at this moment is whether in truth the present Government have a mandate from the people for the administration of the affairs of the country.
In the magnificent and powerful speech delivered by the hon. leader of the Opposition he over abundantly proved that the present Government have usurped power and that they have consequently no authority to direct the destinies of Canada.
The Prime Minister answers the arguments of the hon. leader of the Opposition by saying that he will remain in power as long as he can command a majority in the House of Commons. His majority, however, is but one of some twenty votes, fifteen of which are of members who have no right to their seats in the House since their election was due to the soldiers' vote. Such, Mr. Speaker, is what the hon. Prime Minister calls commanding the confidence of the House of Commons and consequently of the country at large.	.
At any rate, either this Government is the heir of the Union Government formed in 1917 for the duration of the war, or it is a government with a new head. In either case they hold no mandate from the people to govern the country.	_
It must not be forgotten that in 1917 this Government was constituted for one object only:	the carrying on and the ending of
the war. On all the hustings of the land, it was declared that this coalition was to end with the war. As you know, the war has long since come to its end, but nevertheless these gentlemen contend that they have the right to continue to direct the affairs of the country, because, as they say, they have behind them the majority of the House. They may truly have a majority, but, as I said a moment ago, what sort of a majority? A majority composed of members elected through the manipulation of the soldiers' vote, thanks to the iniquitous Wartime Elections Act, thanks to the disfranchisement of loyal Canadian citizens. And it is with a majority thus obtained that the Government mean to carry on the affairs of the country.	*
As I said before, the last by-elections, and particularly that of West Peterborough, are an indication of the popular will. I am convinced that they reflect the sentiment of the whole electorate of Canada. The question was clearly put by all the candidates, and the answer was a signal one-the majority of the Opposition candidates was overwhelming.
For my part, I do not believe that the Prime Minister could have the respect, much less the confidence, of the Canadian electors. It is he who has shaped, who * has conceived all the iniquitous laws from which we have suffered during the war. And he himself dared to boast of it in Sherbrooke, when he asserted that he was the father of conscription, and that if the thing was to be done over he was ready to repeat his measure.
The hon. Prime Minister is the man who in all circumstances was the instrument of the Government. He it was who devised the closure, the muzzling of the members of the Opposition and of all those who were here to defend the interests of the people. He was also, probably, the one who contrived the censure of the press in order to prevent the electors of Canada from being

to the misappropriation or the maladministration of public funds.
A third reason which has suggested itself to my mind as a good and sufficient one why, if sustained, I could vote against the Government, is this-the enunciation of such a policy as, in the judgment of the members of Parliament, is detrimental to the prosperity and welfare of the country. If this Government were to enunciate and set forth such a policy as, in my humble opinion, would be detrimental to the prosperity and welfare of the Dominion of Canada, I should feel bound to support the present amendment. But what are the facts of the case? They are that the policy, so far as it has been enunciated in the spoken word and the published statements of the first minister of the Crown, is such as commends itself most heartily to my mind and judgment. I believe that policy, as clearly as I can understand his words, is in the highest interest of the country from a commercial, social and national standpoint. Why then should I vote against such a policy? I endorse the spirit and also the substance of his published language and of his spoken word, because those words have been uniform. I have heard him in the province by the Pacific; I have heard him in this city; I have read what he has said on the prairies; I have read what he has said east of the Ottawa river, and in every place and in every province he has told the same story.
There has been the enunciation of the same fiscal policy, namely, proper protection for all Canadian industries. I would that I could emphasize that little word " all," because, Sir, it includes the labour of the entire Canadian population. The policy looks towards the protection, not of any one class, or of any one people, or of any one section of the community, but it is a policy which aims to foster and promote the highest development and prosperity of all our Canadian industries, and our Canadian industries are manifold. They are not restricted to the manufacturers; they are not restricted to the cities; they cover the country from ocean to ocean, and, Sir, a fiscal policy that seeks to protect and preserve and encourage all legitimate Canadian industries is a policy such as I feel disposed to endorse and support.
There is another thought in the published statements and spoken words of the Prime Minister which appeals to me very strongly. I know that it has not been very seriously emphasized in this debate, but I see in it possibilities of great things in the

future. I refer to what I believe to be his honest and sincere and genuine purpose and intention to do all within his power as First Minister of the Crown to unify the Canadian people. Sir, this is no time, even by insinuation, and much less by ridicule, to throw any slur or cast any reflection upon such a high and noble purpose. It may be said by some that unification is impossible. I grant that in some respects that is true, but in other respects unification is not only possible, but in the interest of Canada it is absolutely necessary. True it is, that from ocean to ocean there are varied interests, and in some respects we cannot all be united. We may never be united in our religious convictions. There is no desire on the part of any one, I hope, to have a recognized state religion in this country. We do not wish that; the country repudiates the thought. The desire of the people of Canada is that every man shall have the right of private opinion and action with regard to his own religious views and further that there should be no official recognition by the State of any particular body, class or creed but that all should stand on a common footing before the law of the land. There canont be unity so far as a great national religion is concerned. Nobody wants it, nobody expects it.
Neither can we be united politically; I suppose that goes without saying. But there is a sense in which I believe the Prime Minister is looking towards unity on a higher, or national plane; that is to say, we can be divided in opinions, but united in aim. This may be old and oft-trodden ground, but, Sir, we cannot traverse it too often. There is in our country room for division of opinion on great national questions, on great political principles, and so long as the division is along the line of principles I have absolutely nothing to say against it. I welcome it. I believe it is a healthful sign of public thought and public sentiment. What I deplore is the existence in this great country of anything which would even appear to divide province against province, or class against class, or one section of the country against another section. We may be divided on great national issues; we should on these be divided; but in the name of our common country let us divide on lines of principle or policy and not on lines of class, not on lines of religion, not on lines of race, not even on lines of language. We cannot afford it. Our country is too big

and potential, the future of this Dominion is too vast in its importance to allow anything of that character to interfere with or retard our true national prosperity.
There has been, in late years, arising a class consciousness as we are all aware. There is room for a class consciousness, and there will issue from it certain results to the advantages of the class, its progress and development, locally, and socially, but when we step into the larger realm of national affairs and national policies, I claim, Sir, that we should be first, last, and always, Canadian citizens. I sit in this Chamber by the grace of the votes of my people, a fruit grower, here to my right is a lawyer, to my left a manufacturer, behind me are two doctors, across the aisle is a grain-grower from Saskatchewan, and another from Manitoba; but we are not here as lawyers, or grain-growers, or doctors, or manufacturers: we are here as Canadian citizens.
During the last few months we have had two by-elections in the province from which I come. Considerable has been said in this House about by-elections, and I want to tell you something about these two byelections in my province. One was in the city of Victoria, the other in the constituency of Yale and, Sir, it is a matter of history, a matter of fact, that in neither of these cases was there an Opposition candidate in the field representing the official Opposition in this House. In the city of Victoria there was a combination of opponents of the Government, but without an issue, without the semblance of a platform-they were simply against the Government. What did we find in Yale, where the second by-election took place? We had the Government candidate standing on the Government record and on the Government policy. Did my Liberal friends put a candidate in the field in Yale? No, they did not, although at one time, I am told, they intended to. What was done? It was decided by the Liberals of Yale in written resolution that in view of the situation which obtained, all the opponents of the Government candidate, should unite in order to "defeat the common enemy" and therefore they endorsed the Opposition candidate.	_
That was the situation in Yale-no policy, no principle, simply a combination of some Liberals, some returned soldiers, some farmers, and some extreme Labour men who united their forces in support of one man who, when he received their endorsa-tion, turned round and said: "I repudiate
the whole of you; I will be an independent." My friends the Agrarians, through their representatives, have been doing their utmost to win to their political bosom the farmers from my province. That is perfectly legitimate. I presume that courtship is always in order. Up to the present the farmers in my constituency-and I have the honour to represent one of the finest rural constituencies in the Dominion of Canada-and the farmers of my province as a whole have not responded to their solicitations. They have stretched out their hands across the Rockies and with a firm grasp have said: "We are brithers a', but first and last we are Canadian citizens and we shall not enter into any political alliance with the agrarian movement of the Prairies."
Now, I stand here to-night as a farmer, but not as a class man. I believe that it is the right and the privilege of the members of any class to unite for the advancement of their own local interests, of their own business or profession; but in the higher sphere of national deliberation, let us meet as Canadian citizens
9 p.m. to promote the interests of all classes and conditions of people in the country and of the nation as a whole, irrespective of the occupations which we as members may individually pursue. I have examined as closely as I can the three main reasons which could possibly be adduced why a man should vote against the Government of the day and in favour of the amendment as proposed by the leader of the Opposition, and by way of brief review in reply let me say that this Government has kept its pre-election pledges. It has prosecuted the war to the utmost of its ability, and history will determine, as we cannot do to-night, the measure of praise which is due to Canadian arms in the final victory that was won in 1918. Now, because this Government redeemed every one of its pledges, and is now in process of winding up the business in the closing years of its record, am I to vote want of confidence in an Administration that by redeeming those pledges has brought honour to our country and established for her no small place of influence among the nations of the world? No charge of any serious character has been made against the Government. Why then should I vote against it?
The general future policy of the .Government as enunciated by the Prime Minister in his address commends itself to the people

of the Dominion, I believe. It is useless for my friends on the other side to say that the country wants a change. There is no use in saying that: the mere assertion does not make it a fact. I know that in many districts of this Dominion the people are satisfied with the present Government, and it is a weakness on the part of the Opposition to simply ask the Government to resign, and to reinforce that request by calling them names. That is only the method of school-boys in the primary classes. To say: "You are usurpers, office seekers, etc." is the policy of children and not of statesmen. Who are the office seekers? Ask that question in my district and people will smile, as well they might. When the First Minister of the Crown paid a visit to the province of British Columbia he left an impression of candour, of sincerity, of ability, and of personal power and magnetism that even his enemies admitted. More than one said to me in private: "I do not see how I can vote against a man: of that calibre;" and so to-night, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say in answer to my hon. friend from Brome that I cannot accept his invitation. I shall vote against the amendment and in favour of the motion.
Mr. 0. TURGEON (Gloucester) :	Mr. Speaker, before dealing with the subjects contained in the Address, I desire to pay my tribute of congratulation to the mover and seconder, both of whom discharged their duty in this respect in an admirable manner. While I do not endorse some of the sentiments expressed in the speeches of those gentlemen, I must say that my hon. friend who moved the Address has undoubtedly displayed on this occasion literary attainments which are not frequently met with in our day and that in his short address he has expressed noble thoughts in noble language which I am sure we all appreciate. All together he has given unmistakable evidence of the fact that the "Garden of the Gulf" can produce the best elements of humanity as well as of nutriment. My hon. friend from Yale (Mr. MacKelvie) who has made his debut is also well equipped as a parliamentarian; he shows great command of language and much depth of thought, and the House may well regard him as a valuable acquisition. Naturally the hon. member for Yale is interested in apples and wants this commodity protected. Were I in his place I would endeavour to have this choice fruit enjoyed not only in the neighbourhood of its culture, but would have it sent across

the boundary to the South so that it might tempt the American as well as the Canadian epicures. There are thousands of Canadians who would certainly greatly appreciate the extension of the field of fruit production and such an extension would be in the best interests not only of British Columbia but of the Dominion as a whole.
We now have a Prime Minister administering the destinies of the Dominion. Were the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Meighen) present in this Chamber I think he would permit me to state that from the first day he made his appearance among us I have acknowledged his talent, his ability, his legal acumen, his subtlety and ingenuity, and, recalling the first of his speeches in Parliament, there has come to my mind this evening an incident in which there figured an old deskmate of mine, who departed this world only a few months ago, and myself. The gentleman in question enjoyed the admiration and the love of the House during the years he sat beside me- I refer to the late Mr. Leblanc, who for years sat beside me in this Parliament and who made way for the present member for Kent, N.B. (Mr. Leger). We had both carefully watched the young man who was to become the future Premier of Canada, and whose health seemed to be so frail. My deskmate of that time, who could not always follow closely the utterances of members, was accustomed to ask me what they had said and what my opinion was of their speeches. One day he inquired of me "What do you think of that young gentleman?" meaning the present Premier. I replied, "If he lives, he will rise."
My prediction has been fulfilled. The young member of that day has lived and has risen to a most commanding position, and he will undoubtedly bring to the administration of public affairs in Canada that talent and that ingenuity for which he was conspicuous when he first entered Parliament. Despite his mental equipment it seemed to be the fate of this young man to be plunged into difficulties, and in the exercise of his high duties he has undoubtedly at times been placed in a position before the country and before the Empire which perhaps he has not always enjoyed. His generosity has induced him to do his utmost to preserve his party from the fate which threatened it, and perhaps it is not too much to say that but for his ability it would have gone under before the year 1917 was reached.

In spite of my opinion of his talents I am bound to say that the present learned and capable Prime Minister has done things which have aroused suspicion in the minds of the people. Many of the doings of Parliament during the last ten years, it must be admitted, do not commend themselves to the calm judgment of the electors of Canada, including old time Conservatives as well as old time Liberals. It seems to me that his party have profited by his devotion and his talents to-I will not say ruin-but to lessen his reputation, for he was called to a better destiny than has been permitted to him as the result of his*choice of followers and friends.
May I recall one of the first pieces of legislation with which he was identified and which had an important effect upon the procedure of Parliament? I remember well the manner in which it was introduced and how it blocked our late lamented leader, who was so greatly beloved not only by Canadians but by the world at large. As a result of the change in the rules of the House, the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier on rising to speak on an amendment was obliged to sit down and to suffer in silence. He was debarred from speaking, although he had a perfect right to. When a vote was reached, I remember as well as though it were only yesterday the desertion of some seventeen or eighteen French-Can-adian members elected as Nationalists. There was one exception, the then member for Bellechasse. With him blood was thicker than water, if I may use the phrase, and he voted on the side of the Liberal leader. But each of the other members to whom I allude rose to plant a dagger in the heart of the great Liberal. The time came when every one of them disappeared from political life, with the exception of one who managed to save himself when his political ship was foundering.
Other acts of the present Prime Minister when he was Solicitor General or Minister of the Interior have not commended themselves to public approval. His coming to the front, as he has done, denotes that his talents were far above those of the rest of his colleagues in Parliament. Let me say in this connection that we have not forgotten our former great leader. As the member for St. Hyacinthe-Rouville said yesterday our former great leader is dead. True he is dead but his spirit survives and will live for centuries to come.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Yes, for a long time to come.


Mr. TURGEON:: 

of the United States our constitution is still more democratic, in that the voice of the people could be given effective expression to when the Government for the time being had forfeited the confidence of the country.
What are the circumstances to-day? I may be permitted to recall the conditions and the principles upon which Union Government was made possible in 1917. As a close personal friend and an enthusiastic admirer of the Hon. Prank B. Carvell, who became Minister of Public Works at the formation of Union Government, I had particular occasion to remember the conditions on which he became a member of that Government. The primary condition was that the Government of that day was formed for the period of the war and until demobilization, and no longer. My hon. friend the member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) yesterday with his usual eloquence recited to this House the explanation given at the time by the then Minister of Public Works respecting the formation of the Union Government, and that he would retire when he thought his mission was over. I wish to emphasize his election addresses at the beginning of the campaign of 1917, when he stated to the country the conditions upon which he and his colleagues entered that Government; and it must be remembered that he was telling the people those conditions before they voted, that the Government candidates were to be elected only for the duration of the war and demobilization, and no longer.
I see my sincere friend the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) looking in my direction, and I am sure that his expressions at that time were similar to those voiced by the then Minister of Public Works. They told the country that they and their colleagues were joining the Union Government for one purpose only, for the carrying on of the war, and when that had been brought to a successful conclusion they would return to their party. They did not say that they were joining the Government for a term of five years; no, they were educating the electorate to the fact that as soon as the war was over they would all return to their own fold and leave the Conservative party to its own fate.
Let me quote from a speech delivered at Sarnia, Ontario, by the then Minister of Public Works, Mr. Carvell, at a convention for the selection of a Union Government candidate. I take this report from the St. John Telegraph, a publication which was most devoted to the minister during that campaign, so that the correctness of the

report cannot be doubted. Among other things the report says:
Mr. Carvell told of the great efforts made to prevent a rupture in the Liberal ranks,

but it failed.
"But* we men who disagreed with Sir Wilfrid are Liberals yet, and when the war is over, we will start again where we were last week."
Mr. Carvell declared that the Liberals in the Government would not remain unless profiteering was stopped1, and unless certain things happened which he thought ought to happen.
He was telling the members of the old Government that they had been helping profiteering, and the members of that Government assented to his profession wlfen they accepted him and kept him in the Ministry. He said that that profiteering would have to stop. Quoting Mr. Carvell, the report goes on to say:
"When things don't suit us, there is no reason why we should remain. I am going through this campaign as a Liberal, as a man who has joined with his opponents for a definite time and for a definite purpose. I would a thousand1 times rather have gone to the country with my own party, but it was not to be."
It was stated, therefore, to the electors of Canada in November, 1917, that this union was formed for war purposes and that after the war was over the Liberals who had joined the Government would return to their party.
My right hon. friend claims that he is in the same position as other Prime Ministers who were called to office during a term of Parliament. Reference has been made to Sir John A. Macdonald and even to the successor of Sir Lomer Gouin in the province of Quebec. But in these cases the Parliaments had but recently been elected; the Governments in question had the confidence of the people; nothing had happened to bring about changed conditions in the ranks of the Government party or in the public mind. The conditions were not similar to those in the present case; therefore the comparison cannot fairly be made.
Well, the war being over, demobilization being completed, and a number of Government members having withdrawn their support from the Ministry, a caucus was called of the remainder of the supporters of the Government for the selection of a leader in the place of the then Prime Minister, who was retiring. The selection of the present Prime Minister may have been a wise one, but that does not alter the fact that the right hon. gentleman holds office unconstitutionally. He has

been elected not by the voice of the people, but by a remnant of supporters of the Union-a union which still remains to-day, though it has no further assistance or support from those who maintain true Liberal principles. His position, therefore, is entirely contrary to the spirit of the constitution.
Had the Prime Minister appealed to the people when he was selected for the office which he now occupies, he would have been defeated, but he would have come back with a stronger following than he will have when he does appeal to the people.
1 wish to tell him as a personal friend that the longer he delays his appeal to the people the smaller will be his guard when he comes back to this Parliament as leader of the Opposition. Possibly he would be more comfortable as leader of the Opposition than he now is as leader of the Government. I do not say that the people of Canada would be very badly off in having my hon. friend as leader of the Opposition; I would tell my Liberal colleagues that they would have to be careful in their administration so that they should not give him the chance to attack them with all the arms which he has at his disposal.
The people to-day are clamouring for an election. The returned soldiers in every province are clamouring for an election. We say that we have done a great deal for our soldiers, but we can never compensate them for the immense sacrifices which they have made. From the very beginning of the war I took a consistent attitude among the people of my constituency. I travelled over every part of my county and talked to boys, not merely to those on the street corners, but to those whose fathers and mothers had been friends of mine and who had by them been entrusted to my care and counsel. Many have come to my private office seeking aid and encouragement, which were freely given. Before conscription came into effect, 1,350 young men had left my constituency, impelled by the spirit of sacrifice, to serve their country, and of that number of young men who one after another responded to my call, 1,150 were French-Acadians. To-day those men who have returned want an election. They do not all approve of the way in which they have been treated. We told them that if they would go to the war Canada would be theirs when they came back, but on their return they have not been treated as they deserve. Every man in every walk of life in Canada to-day wants an election;
10J
they want an expression of their will according to the Canadian constitution, the Canadian and Britfsh spirit.
I shall not enter into a discussion of the tariff. My views on this are well known, and I may have something to say when the Budget is brought before Parliament; but I should like to mention one statement made by the leader of the Government which is not justified by the situation in the country. He repated in his speech the other day that the Government of the day had reduced the tariff by a .considerable amount since the conclusion of the war and had again reduced it last year. That reduction consisted in the removal of the extra duty of 5 per cent on British imports and 71 per cent on other imports which was introduced by the Conservative Government at the beginning of the war; it was added on to the tariff which the Liberals had left to their successors in office. It was added as a war measure and, ini my estimation at the time and in my estimation still, it was a pure war measure, and when they say they have reduced the tariff by so much since the conclusion of the war, the fact is that they have only eliminated by degrees, in two sessions, that extra tariff duty of 5 and 7i per cent which was imposed as a war measure. It was, therefore, right that they should expunge it from the tariff of Canada, and for their action in doing so they deserve no eulogy, and, indeed, no consideration.
There are others who claim that the Government of the day has not given the people of Canada justice. We know what has happened since last session as regards the increase of rates on the railways. My position is not new; I did not remain silenfi until a clamour arose from the Atlantic to the Pacific against that increase of 40 per cent in rates on Canadian railways granted for the benefit of the b9ard of administration of the National Railways, the experts of Mackenzie and Mann; at the last session on more than one occasion I protested in this House to the Minister of Railways (Mr. J. D. Reid) against the idea of an increase in freight rates at this time, until conditions became more settled, until we saw what the board of administration of the National Railways of Canada would be able to do. On more than one occasion from my seat in this House I directly warned the Railway Commission against granting an increase at that time, and I begged the Government not to ask the Railway Commission to look into this request for an in-



PRINTING, LIBRARY, AND RESTAURANT OF PARLIAMENT

[Stage Direction]
Mr. Speaker informed the House that a message had been received from the Senate communicating to the House the names of the senators appointed to act
[Stage Direction]
on behalf of the Senate on the joint committees of both Houses on Printing, Library of Parliament, and Restaurant.
On the motion of the Right Hon. C. J. Doherty the House adjourned at 10.25 p.m.
Monday, February 21, 1921.